subject to possible sanctions. weigh maywe may not agree with those allegations against u.s. trade policy -- i certainly don't -- but the problem is that the portman-stabenow amendment would give those determinations to international trade tribunals. so whether we agree or not we're going to find ourselves in a mess, no matter what happens should that amendment be accepted. at this point the proponents will point out that they've approved language -- from the enforceable rules mandated by the amendment. with all due respect to the authors of the amendment that's a red herring. keep in mind that the u.s. dollar is a global currency. the primary reserve currency in the world today. that being the case, our

nation's monetary policies necessarily have a global impact making it very difficult to determine what constitutes purely domestic monetary policy and what is meant to be international. and once again again that determination will not be made here in the united states but by international trade tribunals. i don't know about you but i've got to say that causes me great alarm. we also need to keep in mind that under currently available economic models and methodologies, it is virtually impossible to definitively measure currency manipulation. there is no clear and obvious threshold at which anyone can with certainty declare that a country's currency has been manipulated most like poo point to the standards set by the

international monetary fund. however, even their formulations have been unable to determine currency manipulation with any level of specificity. for example i.m.f. models recently showed that in 2013 japan's currency was anywhere between around 15%% valued and 15% overvalued in other words existing standards for determining what is and what is not currency manipulation are flimsy and ill-defined. it would be very, very dangerous to subject u.s. monetary policies to enforceable rules based on these standards. yet that's precisely what the portman-stabenow amendment would do. third, under the amendment the traditional role of the u.s. setting u.s. exchange rate

policies would be watered down and potentially overruled in international trade tribunals. this adoption of the portman-stabenow negotiating objective cedes independence and full authority over not only monetary policy for the federal reserve but also the exchange rate policy for the treasury. fourth, the portman-stabenow amendment would deal a serious setback to ongeferghts to fight currency manipulation by encourage our trades partners to evade regular reporting and transparency of exchange rate policies. if currency standards become enforceable and immediately subject to sanctions under a trade agreement, parties to that agreement would almost certainly start withholding full participation in reporting and monitoring mechanisms. -- that are designed to uncover and combat currency manipulation. put simply, we cannot enforce

rules against unfair exchange rate practices if we do not have information about them. the portman-stabenow amendment would make it far more difficult to obtain that type of information. their approach would push currency manipulation practices into the shadows as countries would fear being hit with trade sanctions, if a trade tribunal once again deems their policies to be manipulative. as you can see, madam president concerns about the portman-stabenow amendment extend well beyond the veto threats. indeed even if no veto threats have been issued -- and make no mistake they have definitely been issued -- there are enough problems inherent in the approach taken by this amendment to warrant opposition on its own. can we take those chances? i don't think so. you don't have to take my word for it, madam president.

every living former u.s. treasury secretary both republicans and democrats every one has expressed opposition to the approach taken by the portman-stabenow amendment. during the finance committee's consideration of the t.p.a. bill congress received a letter signed by tim geithner hank paulson, john snow, paul o'neill, larry summers robert ruben, nicholas brady james baker, michael blumenthal, and george schultz stating among other things, that -- quote -- "it is impossible to get agreement on provisions that subject currency manipulation to trade sanctions in a manner that both the united states and other countries would find acceptable." unquote. it is -- quote -- "impossible" -- unquote. that's their word, madam president, not mine.

we also received a letter from 14 former chairs of the council of economic advisors, again both republicans and democrats expressing similar views. the letter was signed by alan greenspan, ben bernanke, charles schultz, martin feldstein lawyer are d'andrea tie son martin bailey, glenn hubbard austin goolsbee, allan krueger edward la diseer, harvey rosen and gregg manqiue, all have cautioned against enforcing currency standards? our trade agreements that are subject to sanctions and they all noted that such an approach, which would be required under the port man-stabenow amendment would hinder our own economic policies. our current secretary of agriculture said much the same thing in a letter this week. in his letter secretary vilsack

states "enacting a t.p.a. currency discipline requires anence forceable negotiating objective, would likely derail our effort efforts to complete the trans-pacific partnership and cause us to lose ground ond holding countries accountable on currency." he continued arguing -- quote -- "anence forceable currency provision in our trading agreements could give our trading partners the power to challenge legitimate u.s. monetary policies needed to ensure strong employment and a healthy, robust economy." we've also heard from leaders in the business community. in fact we received letters signed by almost every major business association in this country including the u.s. chamber of commerce, biz round table, the national association of manufacturers and counselsless others weighing in against -- either against the portman-stabenow amendment in favor of the hatch-wyden alternative or both.

we've heard the same from agricultural organizations including the american farm bureau the national pork producers council and many, many others. in short both the business and agricultural communities overwhelmingly -- overwhelmingly -- oppose portman-stabenow. this isn't about politics, madam president. this is about sensible policy. now, i'm not arguing that we shouldn't do anything about currency manipulation. senator wyden and i have introduced an alternative amendment that would take a much more sensible and fctive approach to -- and effective approach to deal with these issues. the hatch-wyden amendment would put a number of tools at our disposal to fight currency manipulation including enhanced transparency disclosure, reporting, monitoring, cooperative mechanisms as well as enforceable rules -- the only thing in the portman-stabenow amendment. the portman-stabenow amendment

provides this single tool -- enforceable rules subject to trade sanctions. and this single tool is grossly unreliable and poses a serious threat to u.s. interests. if we fail to monitor what's going on in international tribunals against the united states? the hatch-wyden amendment would give us maximum transparency and flexibility to tailor our efforts at addressing currency manipulation. the portman-stabenow amendment would tie our hands and give us no other option than to subject our trading partners and ourselves to potential sanctions. the hatch-wyden amendment would preserve the integrity of our current trade negotiations. it would pose no threats to otoindependence of the federal reserve and would not subject our own monetary or exchange rate policies to the whims of an international trade trade trial

and it would increase transparency and accountability of our trading partners' currency practices. in pretty much every way, madam president, the match-wyden amendment provides a better approach to dealing with currency manipulation than the one offered by the portman-stabenow amendment. so once again even if you think the president is blowing smoke when he said he'd veto any bill that includes portman-stabenow, that's no reason to vote in i.f.r. if a of the amendment. our alternative approach represents a better solution to a myriad of serious problems. i urge my colleagues to oppose the portman-stabenow currency amendment and support the hatch-wyden alternative. i think you'll be happy if you do that because i think i've made a very strong case here and there's more to be said but this ought to cause everybody to

think and to pause and to say should i really take the chance of voting for this? is it really possible the president might veto it? is it really possible that we could be subject to all kinds of international tribunals over what? -- something we could have avoided with the hatch-wyden amendment. i hope my colleagues will vote for hatch-wyden. it is not a matter of wanting to win on something. it is a matter of needing to win on something for the betterment of our it country and its foreign policy. with that, i yield the floor. mr. wyden: thank you very much mr. chairman. madam president, i would ask at the conclusion of my remarks i'd ask unanimous consent that senator durbin, who is he a been very gracious to let me follow the finance chairman, be allowed to speak. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: thank you very

much. madam president and colleagues, chairman hatch has made a number of important points here this morning, and i just want to to up and give a little bit of an -- to follow up and give a little bit of an upup-and-touch on one issue that has not been discussed. first, i think under chairman hatch's leadership, both sides have been working together in good faith with respect to the amendments and i think it would be fair to say the chairman and i are optimistic that we can have a good and fair list of amendments. that's number one. i want to commend both the democrats and the republicans for part of that amendment discussion. second, with respect to the currency issue which chairman hatch has addressed and i certainly share his views, i would also sum it up that the hatch-wyden approach on currency provides a wider array of tools

to deal with the currency issue without undermining our monetary policy. that's really the heart of the hatch-wyden proposal. we wanted to come up with the widest possible array of tools but at the same time not undermine monetary policy and colleagues that's what janet yellen has been concerned about. she is always been concerned about what would happen if, heaven forbid, we had another financial crisis. she doesn't want her hands tied or the hands of the fed tied in terms of being able to fight that challenge. we know that during that period of quantitative easing a number of countries said that the united states was manipulating our currency. now, of course, that was an outrageous assertion. chairman hatch and i certainly disagree with that. but that's what we're up

against. and, to me, what we ought to be trying to do is provide the widest array of tools to fight these currency manipulation issues and at the same time not undermine our monetary policy. so that's two concerns. and then just an update from yesterday ... yesterday i came because colleagues were talking about excessive secrecy in the way trade policy has been made in the past. and i made clear that i have very much shared that view and went through in considerable detail how we have put in place a new approach that i'm calling "the sunshine trade policy." and, in particular, what it means, madam president is that before any member of the senate and the house votes on the trans-pacific partnership or any

other agreement the american people will have that agreement -- the trans-pacific partnership -- in their hands for close to four months before any member of the senate or any member of the house actually votes on the trans-pacific partnership. and the way it works -- and i want to thank chairman hatch also for his efforts to build this sunshine trade policy -- is before the president of the united states even signs the trans-pacific partnership that document has to be public for 60 days. on top of that, there are probably about another two months that the american people would have that document in their hands. so i know the president of the senate is here.

we welcome her to the senate. what this means is when my colleague from west virginia has a community meeting -- and certainly people in west virginia like the rest of our country care greatly about trade -- people would be able to come to a town hall meeting in west virginia with the trans-pacific partnership document in their hands for close to four months before you or any other member of congress votes on it. so to me, that's an awful lot of sunshine, madam president and it is long overdue. and i want to thank chairman hatch again for working closely with me on this matter. and, for example, this is required by law madam president. it is required by law that the president of the united states make public the trans-pacific partnership for 60 days before

it is signed. so beyond that, yesterday we talked about the labor and environmental issues. once again a very dramatic set of changes and it's why the president and i have said this is the most progressive trade policy in our country's history. for example during those 1990's, my friend from illinois is here -- we remember all those fierce debates from the 1990's 1990's -- one thing that i think all members now realize is those labor and environmental positions meant very little. they weren't be enforceable. theywere off on the side. they were shunted way out of real opportunities to affect the debate. that's different. that's different now because labor and environmental

rights -- and i went through them in great detail yesterday -- are now enforceable on the labor issues we're going to comply with the international labor organization standards the i.l.o. so this is going to be a very different day and it's why the president and i have both said this is the most progressive trade policy in our country's history. now, madam president to just touch on one other topic briefly, i want to address some of the misstatements about what this trade package will and will not do. we've heard suggested, for example, that it's a backdoor route to immigration reform or action on climate change. we've heard some say that a future president could use trade deals to repeal the affordable care act or water down wall street reform r. and these

hypotheticals somehow just seem to be getting more and more far-fetched. my sense is that the rate these hypotheticals are going you're bound to hear that a future president working on a trade deal might have second thoughts about the louisiana purchase. now it's, to me, pretty important to keep this debate grounded in facts. and the fact is the bipartisan legislation passed by the finance committee says in clear terms that trade deals cannot change or override american laws or regulations. let me repeat that. trade deals cannot change or override american laws or regulations. there's been an awful lot of spin out there on this point and i want to address some of those issues this morning. many of the hypotheticals are centered on a common part of trade agreements called investor state dispute settlement, also

known as isds. over the course of three decades with this approach in our trade agreements our country has never lost a single dispute settlement case or paid one dime in penalties. so i've heard all kinds of discussion about this. we never lost a single dispute settlement case. we've never paid a dime in penalties. in fact, our country has been sued 17 times. if you look at the number of years we've had it, it's not as if there's some kind of tidal wave of litigation. now, some have said that even the mere threat of a lawsuit causes laws and regulations to get watered down. again, when you've gone 17 for 17 in dispute settlement cases you have to kind of put that up front in this discussion.

what we know is our country has regulations challenged nearly every day in our own domestic court system; thousands of lawsuits filed every year. and this trade promotion authority legislation makes it clear that companies do not have greater rights under the investor state dispute settlement approach than they do in u.s. courts. the fact is our country is a safe and welcoming environment for investment, but that sure hasn't been the case around the world. property can be stolen, governments can dream up regulations designed to discriminate against our investors. or companies in fields like renewable energy could be targeted and punished in unfair ways. those are companies that we think are right at the heart of a more vibrant economy madam president. renewable energy companies and they have been tarted. in some places, unlike the united states, there's not a reliable court to turn to for

help. this raises a serious question. what happens, for example, if a malasian judge gets with bribed and decides unjustly against an american company and it costs them millions? in another era our country turned to gunboat diplomacy to protect our economic interests but in my view there is a better option. there are an increasing number of cases brought by proenvironment plaintiffs. that looks to me like a positive trend whether it is the renewable energy company challenging a european union state that rolled back incentives for solar or wind energy or the ecotourism investor suing bar bay dose for the discharge of sewage in a wetlands area. now skeptics have argued that the arbiters are invariably biased in favor of corporations. the numbers however tell a different story which is the overwhelming majority of cases

are decided in favor of governments. the record just does not support the proposition that all of the arbiters are unprincipled individuals that allow corporations to use dispute settlement that laws and regulations close down. finally i want it to be clear that i will only accept a plan for dispute settlement that uses a transparent process. what's true in trade negotiations overall has to be true with dispute settlement too. america cannot be kept in the dark. hearings briefs and decisions and all the matters must be open to the public. the bipartisan legislation now before the senate will go further than ever before to protect american soarcht -- sovereignty and afirm the fact that only democratically elected leaders write the laws in our country. done right done right

madam president, our trade policies guarantee that american companies grown up here and invested here and found opportunities to sell brand-or and brand american around the world are going to get the same fair treatment abroad that they get here at home. i thank my colleague for his patience, senator durbin. i yield the floor. mr. durbin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: madam president i thank the senator from or are -- senator from oregon and the senator from utah. though we may agree on some elements they poured their heart and soul in this debate. thank you for your leadership on that. i would like to at this point kind of reflect where we are in the senate at this moment, where we have three major issues facing us and say a word about each. i'll address aspects of the trade bill and the question of national security raised by the extension of fisa. but before i get into those elements, i would like to in

respect to the presiding officer of the senate, from the great state of west virginia, i would like to reflect for a moment on mccruluck leap's. samuel mcculloch was a major during the revolutionary war given the assignment of keeping the western border of the united states frontier safe which focused on fort henry and is now wheeling, west virginia west virginia. major mcculloch had this famous moment when he was turned away from the gates of fort henry and had to ride away with the native americans and indians in hot pursuit and rode up this side of this hill or mountain and as he reached the top there were more native americans and indians waiting for him. he was surrounded in a desperate

situation. and the story or legend goes that at that point major mcculloch went to the edge, and on his horse with his rifle in hand, jumped off leapt off the side of this mountain or hill and the native americans rushed to look down feeling that he must have died, and looked down as the legend goes, to see him ride away on his white horse. they say he made this 300-foot leap on a horse. i don't know if he did or didn't but that's how the story goes. what does that have to do with what we're facing here in the senate? well it's kind of personal, but i used to drive route 40 in those days between st. louis and washington d.c. when i went back to college here at georgetown. i had a 1962 red volkswagen and i used to drive it back and forth. it was a long trip. it was a long trip because there

were not many opportunities to avoid cities. you went right through the middle of indianapolis, right through the middle of columbus and right through the middle of wheeling, west virginia. and on that famous mcculloch's leap hill or mountain, traffic would slow to a crawl so slow, although i never stopped, i was able to read the sign about mcculloch's leap because i was stuck in traffic right in front of it. and i always thought about that. someday i'll get back and get a closer look. i did get back to wheeling and found out the old route 40 has changed a lot and it doesn't go through wheeling, west virginia. i don't get to see that sign on the side of the building, marsh wheeling stogie se and all the things that used to be there because of the interstate. there are amazing interstate opportunities around wheeling, west virginia, around columbus, ohio around indianapolis,

around st. louis around chicago, and it calls to mind one of the issues we're facing here at the close of this session. why do we have such a great interstate highway system? three words: dwight david eisenhower, president of the united states, the successful general who led the d-day invasion in our conquest in world war ii. when he was president he envisioned the creation of an interstate highway system in america. where did he get the idea? from germany. he looked at their highway system and realized what an asset it was to that nation at war, that they could move people and supplies in such an efficient manner on the auto bonn. he had the vision the same thing would be available for america. he called it the interstate highway system. he created it in the 1950's and virtually everyone in america today would concede it was a brilliant idea. it has created a backbone for commerce in america. in my state of illinois, to have

an interstate near your town or passing through your town is really the best thing you can have for your economy except for one other thing. if you have the intersection of interstates nearby, then you know what's going to happen. there's going to be a lot of retail, a lot of commerce, a lot of business opportunities. so here we have this interstate highway system which for almost 60 years has proven to be such a great success in america. why do i dwell on this issue in the closing moments -- we hope -- of this session? there are members of the united states senate who have announced publicly they want to put an end to this. they have said that from their political point of view, we've got to put an end to this federal national highway transportation system. they believe it should all be done by the states and the localities. they think whatever we've done is fine, but from this point forward the federal government should have no role, no voice.

we shouldn't collect a federal gas tax and put it into the construction of highways and bridges and mass transit across america. that's their position. and you would dismiss it as just a marginal political position, but it turns out they have power within the republican party. add to that group those who believe that we should not be collecting revenue any more revenue for the federal highway trust fund and it explains where we are today because of the opposition of these two groups within the republican party those who want to do away with the federal highway program and those who are unwilling to talk about any revenue for the program, today we're going to be asked for the 33rd short-term extension of the federal highway trust fund. just to put this in perspective we used to pass laws that

reauthorized the federal highway trust fund -- federal transportation trust fund -- for five or six years. makes sense doesn't it? if you're going to build a highway, it takes some time -- took a long time in wheeling, west virginia, in chicago in st. louis. you need more than just a few months' commitment. you need several years of commitment to make an investment that pays off for america. and so we used to pass these transportation bills when i was in the house even in the senate and it was the easiest political lift that we were assigned. why was it so easy? because members of congress couldn't wait to go home and announce that federal highway funds were going to come back home and make a difference. i was one of them. i don't know how many shovels i've collected over the years for groundbreakings for highways or scissors for ribbon cutting. we do a lot of that as

politicians. and this federal highway trust fund was a motherload of public relations opportunities for members of the house and senate. why? because in my state 75% to 80% of all the money spent in illinois on highway construction comes from washington. so if we pass this bill, we can point to projects that make a difference. when i was a congressman there's a stretch of interstate that starts on the eastern border of my state at danville and goes all the way way cross -- al wall the way across central illinois to quincy which has dramatically improved the economy of that region. dramatically. i was happy to, every time we completed a segment, to be there for a photo and a press release. but then the argument started that maybe we shouldn't do this and maybe we can't afford to ask those who burn gas loon to gasoline to pass

a tax to build new highways and re-paishrepair the old ones. now we are stuck in this situation where we can't pass a federal highway bill. 32 times now -- 32 times we've we'ven short-term extensions. this one is almost laughable. listen to this. we're going to extend the federal highway trust fund for 60 days. what can you build in 60 days? well, you can fill a pothole. maybe quite a few of them, as a matter of fact. but if you're going to repair a bridge 60 days doesn't really give you much to work with. if you're going to build a new highway, that's out of the queflt and so what we are -- that's out of the question. and so what we are doing limping along extending the federal highway trust fund for 60 days, six months, sadly is ignoring the obvious.

there are darn few things you can point to with certainty that the government can do to help build the american economy. but one i am sure is infrastructure. which used to be a bipartisan issue. democrats and republicans alike agreed build the infrastructure for business-to-, to keep businesses a tract businesses and to create opportunities for jobs in america. not anymore. under the republican leadership of the house and the senate, they have refused to even schedule a hearing for a markup for the federal highway trust fund. nope not going to do it. theythey want to extend this federal highway trust fund 40e6 60 days. i guess they believe that you fill enough potholes you can build a highway. i don't think so. they think america can patch its way to prosperity. i don't think so. i think we have to look at the

obvious. if we are committed to this country, to its furniture to building the economy and creating jobs and keeping them, if we want our children and grandchildren to have an infrastructure that builds competition into the 21st century, you can't do it with a 60-day highway bill. it cannot be done. i had a long discussion in my democratic caucus over the last several weeks and told them, i think we're making a serious mistake here. i think this go along get along, 60 days, we're leaving for a week for member memorial day attitude has to come to and he. i think the republican leadership in the house and senate has to really stand up appeared accept responsibility and that means passing a federal highway bill, a federal transportation bill. and it is not just highways and bridges, as critically important as they are.

it includes mass transit. and in the state i represent of illinois downstate we love our highways. get up to the chicago metropolitan area, we love our highways still but without mass transit, we couldn't move all the people we need to move to keep the economy humming in the chicagoland area. 20 tar% of this federal transportation bill goes to mass transit. and i'm all for it. i support it that. more people in trains, more people in buses fewer people on the highway. less congestion. i think we ought to look at the big picture too even beyond the federal transportation bill. can you imagine when that tragedy occurred on amtrak just a little over a week ago -- i believe eight people lost their lives and hundreds were injured -- that the very next day the next day the house of representatives held a hearing and decided to cut the appropriation for amtrak.

it's a classic case of what are they thinking? we want amtrak to be safe, reliable efficient and the people of america have told us they want it to grow. if you want to ride an amtrak train in my state coming in to chicago or going out of chicago you better get a reservation. because those cars on amtrak trains are packed. and, sadly the train that crashed, those cars were about 30 years old as most amtrak rolling stock is, and we are not investing in amtrak for our future. where i live, amtrak makes a big difference. without amtrak service out of chicago headed downstate in illinois, i can tell you a lot of university presidents will tell you they won't have enough students. students come from chicago down to champagne urbana, to the university of illinois, to charleston at eastern illinois

university carbondale for southern illinois. they take that west side of our state run on amtrak down to quincy university in western illinois knox college. over and over again amtrak service is a critical part of our state and its economy. and yet those in leadership here on the republican side don't believe in it. they want to see it go away, just like they want to see the interstate highway system come to an end. i think they're wrong i think they're shortsighted. and i think the people of this country have got to speak up. so i guess, madam president i'm serving notice here. this 60-day steption will extension will go through. i understand that. but from this point forward it is not tbg to be automatic anymore. i.t. not going to be, we will, we'll do 60 day maybe another 180 days. no i think we need to have a moment in the senate and in the house where this convenient extension at the expense of america's future comes to an

end. it is time for the republican speaker and the republican majority leader to lead, to call together their committees and to pass a federal highway trust fund. they've got 60 days. 60 days from the end of this month to get it done. that's enough. and i hope they do it because if they don't many of us are not going to stand by again and say let's just let this new approach of patchwork america become the symbol of our future. second issue which we still have not resolved is what to do about the patriot act. it was 9/11/2001, and i was in a meetingmeeting off the senate floor and we had just seen son a small television in our room the second plane crash into the new york trade towers. and it was pretty clear at that moment this wasn't just an

accident. this was done by design. it wasn't 15 minutes later somebody broke into the room and said leave immediately get out. there's another plane on the way. and we evacuated the united states capitol building. never seen anything like it in my life. tourists everyone, ran out those doors and stood out on the grass and looked at one another and said, where are we supposed to go? what are we supposed to do? never had happened of about. -- never had happened before. because of that experience and the tragedy of losing 3,000 american lives we came together as a nation and said, we're going to stop this from happening again. we passed something called the patriot act which empowered our government to go further than it had ever gone to keep us safe. we put a sunset on it, and that was a wise idea. we said, i.t. not permanent law. it's going to be reviewed in matter of two or three years because we are acting now with this emotional feeling about what has happened to america

and we think we're doing the right thing but we want to reflect on it and revisit it on a regular basis. why? because we are dedicated to the safety of this country number one -- security and safety. but we're also dedicated to the rights of american citizens, our rights to privacy. so we wanted to strike the right balance. we thought we did but we would return to it. and now we are returning again. and here is the basic question that we faced: we face: and that is, what will be the reach of our federal government in gathering information to keep it safe? specifically in this case, we're talking about telephone records not the substance of your phone conversation but your records whom did you call, how long did the call last, whom did that person call, how long did the call last. maybe two or three generations of telephone information.

bulk collection is a term that's used here and it means basically that if you suspect someone in my home downstate area code of 21 in illinois, if you suspected someone in that area code of being involved in terrorism or connected with the terrorists, the federal government would have the power to reach in and gather all of that phone information from area code 217. you might say tower servings well why would they want to take all of it? they certainly have the name or telephone number of the suspect. no bulk collection suggests gathering all that information. and many of us have questioned over the years whether that is needed or it goes too far. and i've offered amendments in the past which were unsuccessful because we didn't know the detail about what the government was doing and i couldn't disclose it. it was classified at that time.

how much we were gathering how often we were gathering it. so over the years my amendments amendmentamendments succeed but -- my amendments wouldn't succeed but the cause continued to grow to the point where we now have u.s.a. freedom act which says basically the federal government can reach into area code 217 to go after a suspect that suspect'ssuspect's records and the people that that suspect may be in touch with. so we are more or less localizing it, particularizing it going to an individual rather than collecting all of this information bulk collection. this is what the u.s.a. freedom act does. it limits government reach. now, we don't want to limit it to the point where it endangers us. so we went and asked the professionals, the intelligence agenciesagency in the department of justice, is this new version of the law enough for you to keep america safe and they said yes. as a result, we have a

bipartisan bill that just passed the house of representatives -- democrats, republicans supported by speaker boehner the republican leader -- passed overwhelmingly the u.s.a. freedom act and has now come over to the senate. why do we have to take this up now? because at the end of the may the authority of the federal government to collect information on telephone records expires. the sunset i talked about recurs. so we have an obligation to do something before the end of may. i believe we should call the u.s.a. freedom act that passed in the house of representatives and pass it here. we're told by the president the attorney general, the head of our intelligence agencies that this is enough authority to keep us safe and not go too famplet far. i failed to add a recent court case in the state of new york found that this bulge bulk collection of telephone records was illegal. we have to act to do something and we we can. but it's tied up in knots.

the majority leader took exception to some members of his own party and our own party in our position supporting the u.s.a. freedom act. i hope that he'll give us a chance to pass that and i hope there is a bipartisan majority to pass it. the last issue which i'd like to address is the trade bill that is pending here, and it is a controversial measure. i won't go into any depth. i can't add a great deal to what has been said by so many people on the floor about this legislation. but the currency question raises an interesting question for us. there are ways to have unfair trade practices that are not very obvious and some that are. one of the obvious ways to deal unfairly in trade is to dump -- to dump a product in another country. what does that mean? it means if you are going to create and fabricate a ton of steel in brazil and then sell it in the united states for less than your

cost of production, you're dumping it. that's exactly what happened to us about 12 years ago. brazil japan and russia decided to dump steel in the united states. why would any country want to sell steel at lower than the cost of production? they're going to lose money on it; right? they saw that in the short term. in the long term they knew it would happen. u.s. steel producers couldn't compete, couldn't sell at that price. and so they kept dumping steel in the united states until more and more steel companies in america went out of business. they filed their grievances for unfair trade practices and therein lies the problem. those grievances, those complaints ended up going to tribunals which sat down to study the issue and make a decision on the issue. by the time they made a decision and found out yes, there was dumping going on; yes, it was unfair to the united states, by that time all the u.s. steel companies that were affected had

lost and gone out of business. when you have a trade agreement it isn't just a matter of having provisions. they need to be enforceable on a timely fashion or we'll lose businesses and we'll lose jobs in america. so we have two other issues that are before us now. one of them relates to currency. you can price a product by the value of your currency against another country's currency. china and japan have developed quite a reputation in the world for their currency manipulation to make sure they always have an advantage over the united states 25% to 30% no matter how good we were. so currency is an important issue that we brought up an amendment today and it's an indication, i think to everyone who follows this debate of the complexity of the debate on trade. there's a second issue brought up by senator wyden of oregon, who is the ranking member of the senate finance committee and that is the whole issue of what

to do when you have a dispute with another country about a provision of law. illustration: australia passed a law which required on their tobacco packaging they put warnings so that people in australia understood the health risk of using tobacco. that's not uncommon. we do it in the united states. but phillip morris, an international company which had offices in hong kong, protested to australia that these labels that scourge people from buying -- that discourage people from buying their tobacco products would cost them business. and they used this investor trade dispute mechanism which meant they didn't have to go through the courts of australia. they went through this basic mechanism, this tribunal created by the trade agreement. the net result of it was that

australia faced this prospect. either remove the law requiring labeling or pay phillip morris for the effectiveness of that labeling on their profits. the argument for this separate tribunal is that you can't always trust the courts of a country. and i heard that from my friend from oregon. but it also, when you take this out of the court system and let it be decided by corporate leaders, it really puts you at risk. what's going to happen when some country or company, i should say, protests in america about our environmental laws, about our banning toxic chemicals about our tobacco warnings? that means it won't go through the courts of the united states. it's going to go through a corporate business tribunal. i worry about that. again, that's an aspect of trade which most people don't think about, but it could affect each

and every one of us very, very personally. madam president, we're likely to finish this session this weekend, i hope, and we have three important issues here. we're going to probably extend the highway trust fund for 60 days. i hope that that comes in soon. i see my friend from tennessee on the floor here. i want to just say a word congratulating him for his leadership on the senate foreign relations committee in bringing out an extraordinary bipartisan bill which passed on the floor here related to the negotiations with iran. it is one of the highlights, i might say to my friend from tennessee, of what we've been able to achieve this year, and i thank him for that. i don't know if he serves on any appropriate committee but if he could take his skill and wisdom to create a highway trust fund bill, a bipartisan bill, we need it. and i hope we can do it. secondly i hope we can pass this u.s.a. freaked act. -- this u.s.a. freedom act.

we're likely to complete this part of the trade debate. i hope we have a fulsome debate on the amendments which raises important issues which i have spoken to this morning. it's important that we do this business and do it right. a lot of people are counting on us. i yield the floor. mr. corker: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: madam president i rise today to speak on the matter before us, which is the trade promotion authority that is so important to our nation. i realize that whenever we deal with issues like this, there are always parochial issues that people deal with in order to make sure that their state's interests are represented well. i realize, for instance, things like the ex-im bank are very

important to various people around our country based on manufacturing operations that happen to be in their states and i respect that. i so appreciate yesterday that we were able to move beyond an issue that was holding us up and get to a place where we're going to be able to vote on some final amendments and hopefully move trade promotion authority into fruition. i know we've talked a lot about these parochial issues, and i want to move back to those in just one moment. but i want to talk about the importance of trade promotion authority and an agreement that i hope will come to fruition after we pass this, which is t.p.p. madam president, i know that many in our country especially right now as we see things on our television screen and in newspapers about unrest that's taking place around the world we've been concerned about our

foreign policy. we've been concerned about the effectiveness of what we've been doing. one of the areas that our committee focused on this last week was much of what's happening in the south and east china seas at present. and because of those activities, i was in southeast asia within the last 12 months, and let me just say that there are concerns there among friends people who want to move towards a more western-value based system in their countries. they're very concerned about many of the activities that are taking place in the south china sea. but also the economic dominance that is occurring right now in china as china continues to export not only its strength into the south china sea but also its economic dominance. they have been very concerned about the fact that our pivot to

asia really hasn't borne much fruit. they haven't been able to see something, anything very substantial taking place in that regard. and i think people on both sides of the aisle have concerns about, again, what is happening in that area. but here we have an opportunity to do something that has nothing to do with military might has nothing to do with things that could involve down the road kinetic activity or anything along those lines. we have an opportunity right now to hugely shape that part of the world by passage of this trade promotion agreement which will allow the countries to finally put their last, their last deal on the table. without this, there's no way we're going to dependent to a final t.p.p. -- get to a final t.p.p. agreement which will bring that region, bring that region more closely aligned to the united states, calls us to do much greater business with

them, which will help people in tennessee. it will help people in west virginia. it will help people all across this country be able to export goods to other places. but importantly, it will draw those countries more closely to the united states and it will act as a buffer against the dominance that is taking place now with china. madam president, in meeting after meeting after meeting constantly i was asked will the united states come together and deal with this issue in an appropriate way? will the united states actually be our partner? will the united states work with us to make sure that our economies expand as the united states economy expands? will we be able to count on the united states to enter into a agreement where we have a balance, where we have the opportunity not just to export our goods to china and deal with

china, but have the opportunity to deal with the united states? can we count on the fact that the united states is going to promote free enterprise, is going to promote the rule of law, is going to promote anticorruption is going to promote moving away from state-owned enterprises which in many cases is dominating that area? madam president, i just want to say that t.p.p. and passage of t.p.a. in order to cause us to come to a final agreement on t.p.p. is in our national security interest and is the best way for us to counter what is happening in the region that we consider to be a threat. it's the best way to promote american values. and in the process what we're doing is actually raising the standard of living of americans. so this is a win-win. i know again we've got a lot of parochial issues that people care about rightly. i don't challenge that, that could possibly get in the way of

that. so madam president i hope that over the course of the next several hours we will figure out a way to appropriately deal with amendments that allow people to voice concerns, especially concerns that they have in their own respective states. but i hope when we move beyond that when we move beyond disposing of those amendments as a group, we will come together, pass this t.p.p. which again more than anything else we can do right now in the region will cause us to be aboard and cause people to move to western values that we hold so dear. madam president, that brings me to an issue. first of all, on the national security front, we have a host of former secretaries of defense that have signed a letter, people on both sides of the aisle -- former generals who

worked in the region -- who know how important t.p.a. is and t.p.p. following on, know how important they are to our national security interest. in addition to that, i think you know we've had ten treasury secretaries who signed a letter talking about one of the amendments that may be on the floor dealing with currency. madam president, i don't know what your office is like right now, but we're being inundated with e-mails especially from the auto industry, regarding this currency issue. madam president, back during the crisis i know you were be serving in the house of representatives and i was here in the senate, back during the auto crisis, the senate debated issues relative to the auto crisis. i know the house did the same. but during that crisis, president bush late in december decided that he would use u.s.

taxpayer money to bail out the auto industry. and president barack obama who was elected came into office shortly there after and he followed up on what president bush had put in place. and there something called tarp, something that was unexpectedly unexpectedly -- was put in place to be utilized to bail out the financial industry -- again something that was regrettable and had to take place -- the ood industry was bailed -- the auto industry was bailed out. madam president, taxpayers for the united states, of the united states bailed out the auto industry to the tune of $80 billion. $80 billion we invested in the auto industry. what that did was not just bail out the large entities that needed needed the money. it bailed out the supply chain

that worked to support what they did in their manufacturing operation. and so the taxpayers of this country, in a massive way in an unprecedented way back in 2008 and 2009 injected taxpayer money -- taxpayer money -- into private enterprises to make sure that they would survive. it was obviously controversial. today obviously many jobs have stayed in place as a result of that and people certainly have differing opinions about what should have happened during that time. but i fear what's happening right now is that the auto industry is back. the auto industry is asking for another bailout. let me say that again: the auto industry to me, in our office anyway and i think other offices around the capitol are hearing from the auto industry

right now about a currency provision, a provision that they want inserted in t.p.a. in order to give them another bailout to ensure that as we move into this agreement, they will have an advantage, if you will. they will have a competitive advantage. so, madam president i hope -- i think all of us understand that the president has said he would veto t.p.a. if it has this currency provision in it. we've had treasury secretaries ten of them, highly respected on bodge sides of the aisle, who have -- on both sides of the aisle, who have told us, told us that we should not have currency provisions of this type in a t.p.a. agreement. i think we understand the difficulties that having these currency provisions in t.p.a. will -- the difficulties it will create in actually completing the t.p.p. agreement which again i've eption mentioned before.

obviously it is important to us economically but hugely important to us from a national security standpoint and from our national interest standpoint. so, madam president i know these currency issues sometimes are difficult to deal with. i just want to urge my colleagues. i think it is important certainly for senators to be able to express concerns about things that may happen in their own states, and i respect that. i respect that. youbut i hope as a body we will rise above giving another bailout, another bailout to the auto industry, which if we do, will greatlyily greatly complicate our ability in t.p.p. it will be in our economic interest and national interest, certainly something that treasury secretaries defense secretaries and others who know

of the great national interest here oppose. madam president i thank you for the time. i hope as a body we'll do what is good for our nation, not just for a small group of people. we will do something that will stand the test of time, we will do something that will cause the standard of living for these pages that sit before us today cause them to be safer cause american values to be more prolific and certainly benefit our nation's economy. with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: thank you youmr. president. i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. shaheen: thank you. in just ten days, authorization for the highway trust fund will expire. the fund will run out of money entirely by the end of july, which means that transportation projects in new hampshire and across this country will grind to a halt.

and what is congress' response to this crisis? this week leadership will bring to the floor yet another inadequate short-term extension of the highway trust fund authorization. and there is no plan whatsoever to address the insolvency of the fund. in other words once again, we are kicking the can down the road but in this case the road is overwhelmed by traffic badly in need of modernization and filled with patches and potholes. for a country that seeks to remain competitive in the 21st century global economy, this is totally dysfunctional and unacceptable. i know my colleagues -- and madam president you -- travel around the city of washington. sometimes i feel like i'm in a third world country when i travel on the roads in d.c. there are few more basic and necessary functions of government than providing for modernized highways, bridges and other infrastructure.

yet congress is grossly neglecting this responsibility. china spends about 9% of their gross domestic product on infrastructure. brazil spendsspends 8%. but -- brazil spends about%. but infrastructure spending in the united states has fallen to just 2% of our g.d.p. that is half of what we were spending in the 1960's. our highways and bridges face a more than $800 billion backlog of investment needs including nearly half a trillion dollars in critical repair work. and americans spend a staggering $5.5 billion -- that's billion not million -- $5.5 billion hours stuck in traffic each year. yet earlier this month the majority party in congress voted almost unanimously for a budget resolution that will slash federal funding for transportation by 40% over the next decade.

this is just irresponsible. this isn't about cutting fat and and ex-gains from the transportation budget. this is about cutting the muscle of our nation's critical transportation infrastructure. last week i went with the mayor and city manager of new hampshire's capitol city to inspect one of three brijts that are critical to the city of concord. it is rusted out and now closed, the sewells fall bridge. our office had worked with them to get the approvals to tbet this inch brvment the city of concord lined up all the permits and then nothing. because of uncertainty about federal funding for the project it was stopped dead in its tracks until the city and state last week, when they realized we weren't going to act stepped in with short-term funding in anticipation that we would finally do the right thing. well, there are thousands of other road and bridge projects

across the country that have been put in the same jeopardy and limbo because of our failure to do the jo be. this neglect is create being being necks in our country -- is creating bottlenecks in our economy, killing jobs in the construction trade where employment has yet to recover from the recession. according to a duke university study providing federal fundingling meet the u.s. department of infrastructure requests would create nearly 2.5 million jobs. earlier this month i joined with a bipartisan group of eight senators who previously served as governors senators king, rounds kaine man chin and misere. we sent thrower our senate colleagues urging them to commit to fully funding national infrastructure priorities and putting a stop to the destructive dysfunctional short-term fixes that have become routine in recent years.

you know, madam president you're too young to remember, but i remember being in elementary school when dwight eisenhower championed our great interstate highway system. that was a visionary move. i remember talking about it in class and being excited about it. the national interstate and defense highways act of 1956 ensured dedicated federal funding to build a network that today encompasses more than 46,000 miles of roadways. that system has transformed our economy and it's created countless millions of jobs, but it's now six decades old. it's dedicated funding mechanism, the highway trust fund is in constant shortfall shortshortfall today it's just -- shortfall and today i.t. just two months away from being abouting about solvent. for congress to pass yet another short-term extension is danling and dysfunctional. it kicks the can down a road

that is crumbling congested and increasinglily competitive. it is time for congress to come together on a bipartisan basis to break the cycle of patchwork fixes. it's time to pass a five- to six-year funding bill that will allow governments at all levels to plan long-term capital investment projects and to build a 21st century transportation system that meets the needs of our 21st century economy. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: madam president i rise today to speak about an amazing presentation i've had the privilege of witnessing twice now in the last several months. at the university of pennsylvania and at the medical center there. i want to speak a little bit about the work that's -- that

scientists and doctors are doing that is extremely excitingily exciting has great complications for all of us really. let me start with a little bit of background, some facts. in 2014 over 585,000 americans died from cancer. there were over 1.6 million new cases diagnosed. and i think it's fair to say that every one of us has a family member, a very close friend we know somebody closely who has been afflicted with some form of this terrible disease. in fact, cancer is on the verge of overtaking heart disease as the leading cause of death in america. we've made a lot of progress on many forms of cancer. we still have a long way to go. i want to speak today a little bit about a very,siting -- exciting new therapy. let's start with talking about cancer a little bit itself. the fact is, cancer cells have

this protective shield, if you will. it's a shield that allows the cancer cell to hide from our immune system. if our immune system were able to function normally with respect to cancer cells you wouldn't have cancer. the immune system would destroy the harmful cells. but that doesn't happen in cancer. and it's because of this protective shield. so can you imagine if we could develop a therapy that would penetrate that protective shield and allow our immune system to break through and destroy the cancer cells. astonishingly, the very viruses that have been responsible for killing millions of people around the world -- h.i.v., pole polio virus measles, they are now being used to create this capability this ability to break through cancer'scancer'sive shield. researchers at the university of pennsylvania led by -- it is a team of researchers willed by

dr. carl june have developed a process to harness the body's immune system to enable it to identify track down, attack, and destroy an important form of leukemia a blood cancer that is most often found in children. in their trial 90% of the patients with this relatively rare form of recurrent leukemia went into remission after they got this groundbreaking treatment, and their cancer has not returned. so dr. june and his colleagues don't ever say this, but they may be on the verge of curing leukemia. and it's very, very exciting. so let me talk a little bit about the specific form of leukemia. acute lymphoblastic leukemia is the most common cancer in children aged one through seven. young children, this is the most

common form of cancer that afflicts them. there are 60,000 cases in the united states alone. acute limb foeblastic leukemia, hard to say. it goes by a.l.l. the leukemia cells are carried you threw the blood stream to other organs and tissues including the brain shall liver, and other areas where they continue to grow and divide. now, most will eight a.l.l. patients can be successfully treated with chemotherapy expensive and sometimes dangerous stem sell transplants. they work in about 80% of a.l.l. cases. but they recurrent a.l.l., those who don't respond and are not cured by these conventional treatments their prognosis is

much much worse. approximately 3,000 pediatric patients relapse after the bone marrow transplant procedures and most of these relapses are early relapses and candidly they have a pretty dis mall outcome. only a 15% to 20% survival rate for children with these kinds of re-loops latches. -- relapses. this is where this new therapy comes in. it is called car t-cell therapy. what happens is doctors remove t-cells from the patient, from the cancer patient. t cells are a type of white blood cell that we all have that's part of our immune system. they take these t-cells and insert new genes from an inactive component of the h.i.v. virus. they use part of the h.i.v. virus to get into the t-cells which give the t-cells a new

capability. specifically they develop the capability to identify and link to a protein that is on the surface of the cancer cell. that's the shield that protects the cancer cell. and this enables the t-cell in turn to then destroy that cancer cell. so that's the idea. the t-cell is taken out. it's modified with the component of the h.i.v. virus. it is then injected back into the patient where it multiplies massively and begins this wonderful search-and-destroy mission, searching for the cancer cells it's been programmed to find and killing them. now this treatment is specific to every individual patient. it works in part because it works with a patient's own t-cell. and so that creates a whole set of protocols and challenges. you have to make sure that you're withdrawing a person's t-cells. you go through a almost a

manufacturing process whereby you transform them so that they can be used for this purpose. one of the most exciting things about this therapy is that after a patient has been treated after they've gotten their modified t-cells put back into their body and after the t-cells have served their purpose they don't just vanish. they remain in a person's system. they remain as part of the immune system, sort of on stand-by ready and able to attack if the cancer were to emerge. they're still in the trial phase of this new process. dr. june was and his team, they were willing to take on the most difficult cases. and in fact that's all they were allowed to take on initially. the first 30 patients that they tried this therapy on had already undergone chemotherapy several times and the chemotherapy had failed.

in fact, everything had failed for these patients. they had no treatment options left. by the time they got to dr. carl june and his team, these patients had weeks to live. in the first trial 27 of 30 patients were cancer-free one month later. one month after receiving the treatment no cancer. 78% of the patients were alive six months after the treatment. now 125 patients have received this personalized cellular therapy at the university of pennsylvania for several kinds of leukemia. they have modified the treatment to address other forms of cancer including non-hodgkin's lymphoma, for instance. and more than 90% of the pediatric leukemia cases that they treated the patients are still in remission. four out of five adults with non-hodgkin's lymphoma have had complete remissions. this is amazing stuff. it's very, very exciting. scientists across the country medical researchers doctors who

are following this have been really blown away by the success, and they refer to it as a major breakthrough, as phenomenal. it's been what we've been hoping for. and just last year the f.d.a. agreed that the progress is so stunning that they granted what they call breakthrough therapy designation for this therapy for this treatment because of the success they've shown in the early trials. this designation is going to allow dr. june and his team to treat more patients more quickly who are in these very, very difficult circumstances. in fact, university of pennsylvania is now already working with novartis in anticipation of the time they'll be able to roll this out as a standard treatment where it will one day hopefully soon, no longer be considered experiment al and no longer be the last resort for patients but an early resort.

the conventional treatments -- chemotherapy and bone marrow treatments tend to have unnecessary side effects. they are necessary because it can be successful. but one of the things that's wonderful about this therapy is that there are no lingering side effects. so it's enormously encouraging. it's very, very exciting. one of the things that's most exciting about this is that this technique conceptually could very well apply to any number of cancers, maybe all cancers. it's a matter -- it's not a small matter. it's a challenge but these guys are meeting this challenge. and the challenge is to design the transformation of the t-cell in a way that will pierce that shield that unique shield for each form of cancer, and they're making remarkable progress. they have also made tremendous process on fighting multiple

myeloma, another blood cancer that is very, very serious. i should point out dr. june and his team at university of pennsylvania are not alone in pursuing this general direction. m.d. anderson in texas is working to use the common cold virus, the virus that causes the common cold to help fight brain tumors in a similar fashion. the penn researchers, they have already developed a way to develop immune cells in mice to fight a very dangerous form of brain cancer. that's been so successful in the animal trials that this fall they will be able to begin human trials on this as well. this kind of brain cancer that they'll be trying to treat affects over 22,000 americans. it's called geoblastoma. people who are diagnosed with stage 4 geoblastoma have very

dire circumstances. the mean survival rate is less than 18 months. this is the form of cancer that took the life of senator kennedy, who was a former colleague of so many of us. this is just extremely exciting. "60 minutes" did a profile on some doctors at duke university who are using a reformulated version of the polio virus. instead of h.i.v., they're using the polio virus to in a similar fashion, to enable our immune system to attack this brain cancer geoblastoma. i was frankly fascinated and incredibly excited about the progress these scientists, these doctors are making. but along the way to get there it costs money and there's been a struggle for the funds to get this done. dr. june's study has been supported by the n.i.h., by the

leukemia and lymphoma society specialized center for research grant program stand up to cancer saint baldrick's dream team. in 2008 the n.c.i. originally denield funding because they -- denied funding because they thought this was too risky. fortunately the leukemia and lymphoma society stepped in. after they treated the first several patients, despite their success, they ran out of money and they had to stop treating patients for over a year while additional funding was lined up. the fact is this research that is funded by the n.i.h. has given us a tremendous strides in early detection and treatment methods and survival rates for a variety of cancers but especially for this work. i know that my colleagues and i are committed to continuing to

fund the kind of research that makes these breakthroughs possible in a responsible way. i wanted to come down to the floor today and just talk about how important this is and how exciting this is. i personally think that we're in an extraordinarily exciting moment of, for health care for our whole society. technology is producing spectacular breakthroughs and it seems to be happening on an accelerating basis. some of the big gigantic intellectual breakthroughs of recent years: the human genome project, gene sequencing, technology that is available now that wasn't imagined a few years ago, the combination of these things is enabling us to make discoveries and breakthroughs in treatments that were beyond human imagination a few years ago, so i think we could be on the threshold of some absolutely stunning and wonderful

developments. personalized medicine is a big part of it. understanding how our genes contribute to our the health care problems we have, but also can be used to combat these problems, this is all readily, i think, within reach. and i'm just very, very excited about it. what i would just close madam president, is i guess my message is when you think about where we are, you think about how close we are to these stunning cures of some amazingly devastating diseases, i think we should set our goal as curing these diseases. our goal shouldn't be to figure out how do we treat this, how do we extend life for a few months? we'll do that for as long as we have to. but our goal should be a cure. our goal should be to cure cancer. our goal should be to cure heart disease. our goal should be to cure alzheimer's. we're going to be able to do this and we should make that a goal. we should make this a priority. we have a lot of competing priorities for the limited

resources that are available to the federal government. i can't think of any that are higher than this extremely noble effort and i can't think of any reason not to. it is within reach the progress is stunning and exciting, and it's happening all across america and very much in pennsylvania. so i'm proud of the work that's being done in pennsylvania. and i look forward to seeing it continue. with that, i yield the floor. ms. stabenow: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: thank you madam president. i'm speaking today on an amendment on the underlying bill. but i do want to indicate supporting my friend from pennsylvania that there is incredible exciting work being done with the national institutes of health focused on those cures. i think the cheanl for us is that the budget -- the challenge for us is that the budget that was passed will actually end up cutting n.i.h. and with this very very bad policy of sequestration that i hope we're going to be able to

fix, if that continues then we will not only not have the ability to move forward on exciting cures but we will actually be seeing n.i.h. cut which i think will be foolish and devastating to all of us in the long run. for lots and lots of reasons the wrong direction. so i hope we can work together on a bipartisan basis to fix that. madam president, first of all let me say coming to the floor on the portman-stabenow amendment that we want to add two more cosponsors today: senator tester and senator markey. that brings us to a total of 30 bipartisan cosponsors on this very important commonsense amendment outlining the importance of the biggest 21st century trade barrier and that is currency manipulation. so i want to thank everyone that is joining together to cosponsor

this. i also know there's been a tremendous amount of energy going on trying to defeat this amount in the last day and a lot of comments being made on the floor. and i do want to, first of all say that in response to comments from someone who i have great respect for -- the senator from tennessee who has played an incredibly important role in moving forward some important foreign policy issues -- that i would caution that we call support from manufacturing whether it be autos or others or supply chains or materials manufacturing, somehow a bailout when we're talking about protecting american jobs. and i would point to the fact that there's a very important company, alcoa in tennessee that just received advanced technology vehicle loan.

and i was proud to author that loan program back in 2007 energy bill. they make aluminum, as we all know. they are retooling to be able to benefit from ford motor company's policy of moving to aluminum to take 700 pounds out of the 150 truck f-150 to make it more energy-efficient. and alcoa is benefiting, a tennessee company. i don't consider that loan a bailout any more than i consider any other loan programs we put together for manufacturing a bailout. but i would just suggest that we have literally millions of jobs across our country connected to the supply chain whether it's autos, whether it's dishwashers whether it's, whatever it is that we're making. and we have manufacturers large

and small telling us that if we're going to move forward and give negotiating objectives to this administration to negotiate a trade agreement with 40% of the global economy in asia that we better understand that the number-one trading barrier used by asian companies is currency manipulation. number one. and i find it astounding. it would almost be funny if it wasn't so -- so crazy these arguments on the one hand that somehow setting up a negotiating principle and just saying if you negotiate something on currency, we want it to be enforceable for the first time. not just words. we have a lot of words years and years and years lots of

words about currency manipulation but this time if you actually negotiate something, we want it to be enforceable that somehow that's going to bring down the trans-pacific partnership. now, if that's the case, then we've got a lot more to be worried about than this amendment, in my judgment, in terms of what is -- sounds like not a very good agreement overall. and we are continually hearing on the one hand that things are getting better with china and that japan doesn't do this anymore, the bank of japan doesn't do this anymore but they don't -- if they don't do this anymore then why do they care? how can anyone with a straight face say they will walk away from a major trans-pacific partnership because we say to our negotiators, on the list of things that we think are

important on behalf of american businesses and workers we count currency manipulation in that list. and by the way, if you do something and we don't prescribe what it ought to be, if you do something by the way it ought to be enforceable. i am astounded at the amount of energy going into this to say this is a poison pill. the reaction, of course -- the reality is in the house of representatives this amendment would actually pick up votes and there is going to be a lot of need to pick up votes in the house of representatives. and i don't know anybody that says that they're voting for this and that somehow this is in here or somebody who is not voting for it that they would not ultimately vote for the t.p.a. and so it's amazing to me and it's amazing to me that my partner in this is a former u.s. trade representative who sat at

the negotiating table who supports t.p.a., who is saying that this is reasonable and will not interfere with the ability to negotiate. now, as i've said before, i'd like to go farther. i'd like to say you don't get fast-track authority unless you do something on currency because this has cost us over five million jobs and counting. but that's not what this amendment says. this creates maximum flexibility for the administration. it simply says on the list of things that are important we care about wages we care about standard of living, we care about protecting the environment, we care about intellectual property rights and we care about currency manipulation, and if you put something in there it should be enforceable under the international rules under the w.t.o. and meet the definition

of the i.m.f. we are not mandating the outcome of any particular negotiation and if simply having this in here means that japan walks away then there's something else going on here that we ought to all be very, very concerned about. now, we've also heard that this will affect countries to attack us on our domestic policy, including quantitative easing. our amendment explicitly exempts domestic monetary policy. in fact, in the text of the amendment -- let me quote the amendment -- nothing in the previous sentence shall be construed to restrict the exercise of domestic monetary policy. now, in the side by side by the leaders of our finance committee, by the way, they have no such exemptions, which is

interesting. some have contended that by adopting our amendment again that particularly japan will walk away but they really can't have it both ways. either the bank of japan is not doing what they've done for 376 times in the last 25 years, 376 times, despite the fact that they signed on the bothed line with 188 countries sign on the dotted line through the international monetary fund. we're part of the i.m.f. and we won't manipulate our currency and they have done it 376 times. so if they're not going to do it anymore, why should they care that we put this in as a priority for the united states, for our workers and manufacturers? and if they care so much and if they would walk away just by our

simply raising this and saying we ought to do something enforceable it's obvious there is going to be 377. and we ought to all be extremely concerned about that, because what does that mean? what are we really talking about? it means foreign products are cheaper here and american products are more expensive there, and in a global economy when our manufacturers are competing not to get into japan but competing around the world with japan, we have already seen the results at other points in time anywhere from $6,000 to $11,000 more on the cost of one vehicle. think about that. as a consumer, you're going to buy a car. $6,000 $8,000, $10,000 $11,000 difference in price. that's a big deal. that's a very big deal. i mean, for all of us who say we

want a level playing field on trade, that our people are smart and competent and compete successfully with anybody we ought to care about this, that when they intervene when the bank of japan intervenes, we are seeing anywhere from a $6,000 to $11,000 difference in the cost of an automobile, and this has cost us over five million good-paig jobs -- good-paig jobs in america. i thought that was supposed to be our priority. that was our job to be fighting, not for the bank of japan. in fact, ford motor company says they will compete with anybody around the world but they can't compete with the bank of japan. so this is about a level playing field. and why again does it matter? it's not just about selling in japan. unlike america madam president the japanese actually have a

preference of buying their own vehicles as a matter of patriotism in their country. i wish we had the same. but so it's not about just getting into japan a little, small island of japan. it's about competing with them on everything in between. it's about the 1.2 billion people who live in india where we're trying to sell to them japan's trying to sell to them, and if they can sell a vehicle for $6,000 or $10,000 less, what do you think's going to happen? it's about the 200 million people in brazil that we're trying to sell to, and japan is trying to sell to. now, they are fighting so much, even having a negotiating principle that says if you -- if we put language in, it ought to be enforceable. if they're fighting so much, it

must be because they're really looking at those countries and saying you know what? we want that $6,000 difference. we want that $10,000 difference. and we don't want anything to get in the way of that. well frankly protecting japan japanese automakers and suppliers, japanese workers is not our job. it's not our job. our job is to stand up for american workers and american businesses and that's what this amendment is all about. all we are saying -- and by the way, this issue of currency manipulation affects every part of the economy. agriculture, medicines every part of the economy.

all we are saying is give us a shot here, madam president. give american manufacturers and workers a shot, at least by saying in fast-track that we want something done on currency, and if you do it, it should be enforceable. countries have been signing up for years saying they won't manipulate their currency and nobody's ever enforced it. no one's ever enforced it. all we're asking is if we negotiate something that it have enforceable standards. it's not enough to have a handshake agreement anymore. how many years do we have to go on? how many millions of jobs do we have to lose? when all we get is good-faith assurances and handshakes. and let me finally say this.

i hope when this debate is done that the intensity to defeat this amendment that our manufacturers who by the way always support free trade. these are the folks in the global economy. they want to trade. but if we're going to put aside american manufacturers american suppliers american workers i hope that the next thing we'll do is focus on fast-tracking the middle class and have as much intensity as many late-night calls, as many meetings together to make sure we have a livable wage in this country to make sure we have a long-term investment in transportation that will not only deal with safety and fixing roads and bridges and transit and rail for our farmers but create millions of jobs. i hope we have as much intensity on that.

i hope we have as much intensity on lowering the cost of college so kids have a fair shot to do what we want them to do, which is work hard, get the grades, go to college and go to work. i hope we have as much intensity around that. if we had more intensity around fast-tracking middle class we wouldn't have to worry so much about what we are doing on trade agreements. i hope we have intensity about closing loopholes that are allowing companiesing to overseas on paper while they still drive on our roads and breathe our air and drink our water and send their kids to schools here. but avoid paying their fair share because they move on paper. i hope we have as much intensity around that. i hope we have as much intensity about making sure that in this global economy, we have a race up with increased standard of

living wages where you can care for your family and send the kids to college and do all the things that we want to do for our families rather than having a race to the bottom where somebody's told if you just work for less and lose your pension and health care, we can be competitive. so let's have fast-track let's have fast-track about the things that really matter to people in this country, which is getting back to having the middle class where you can stay in the middle class, and while we're at it, madam president, let's pass an amendment that makes it clear that we get how important currency manipulation is. and when we're giving up our right to amend a trade agreement, when we're giving up our right to be able to use a 60-vote threshold on a trade agreement, that at least there ought to be a provision in there

that says do your best on currency and by the way if you get some language, how about we make it enforceable this time. five million jobs and counting. that's what we've lost and that's enough. i hope my colleagues will come together and support the portman-stabenow amendment. thank you. the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. isakson: madam president as chairman of the veterans' affairs committee of the united states senate and on the eve of memorial day i think it's appropriate that we pause for a moment. we debate as democrats and republicans today on the floor of the senate currency, trade national security, fast-track, the issues of the day in a contentious debate. we do so freely. we do so without fear of retribution. we do so when we go home tonight we're at peace and comfort knowing we're in a safe nation and we are because of the men and women who have worn the uniform, sacrificed and gave their lives so america could exist today. so i think it's only appropriate that each of us on the senate

floor take a moment to pause and give a prayer for our soldiers who have risked their lives and gave their lives for our country. for me as chairman of the veterans committee i make an effort to go to the american cemeteries all over the world to make sure we're still taking care of them and honoring them to sacrificed the way they should be honored. i want to share with the senate a brief story to point out how important memorial day really is. in may of 2007 i wept to the american cemetery in the netherlands where over 8,000 americans are with your buried who fought in the battle of the bulge to liberate the jews from the concentration camps. they were successful but they died. i walk down the rows of crosses and stars of david looking at each name, looking for georgians to say a prayer for them but came to the end of row h toward the back of the cemetery the last cross it said the following, roy c. irwin, funeral died

december 28, 1944. a tear welled up in my eye because that's the day i was born. sent 28, 1944 when i was born, 70 years later i've existed as a free person in a free society elected to the united states senate served in the military myself have nine grandchildren, have all the joys everybody in the senate have had all because of roy c. irwin who on the day i was born dialed in the battlefields in the netherlands fighting for the liberation of europe and saving the jewish people. no matter what we debate we must remember what memorial day is all about. it's about those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for you and i to engage in this debate and move our country forward. one other other point. we should say a special prayer for the parents of young americans who fought and died in iraq and afghanistan and the current wars today. we had a tragic with the fall of fallujah with the fall of ramadi we need the parents to know their sons and daughters did not die in vain for a

cause that ultimately will prevail because we as senators will see that america does what america always does, liberate the rest of the world and only ask for one thing to leave a couple acres to bury those who died for freedom and democracy. as chairman of the veterans' affairs committee i say thank god for the american soldiers who fought and died for our country and thank god for the united states of america. i yield back my time. the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: madam president i appreciate the opportunity to share some remarks and intend to

support the stabenow-portman currency amendment. i think we are at a point in world history and world trade that our mercantilist trading partners have gotten to be very clever and on occasion they use all kinds of tools tapped some they use all the time and we are seeing that we are unfairly subjecting american manufacturing to currency manipulation and this is not free trade. it's not free trade. currency manipulation other trade barriers, are just as much an obstacle to a free and fair trade as is tariffs. so that's one of the things we've got to get our handle on. madam president, we ask the question why -- i'm asked this a lot.

after the korean trade agreement, i voted for it, the numbers not have come in anything like those that were promised. the president's web site in 2010 when -- before the trade agreement passed, president obama's trade -- his web site said this, that it would -- the korean trade agreement would add an estimated 70,000 american jobs from increased goods exports alone additional job potential from further opening of korea's market to american firms. well that's what i hoped would happen. he said it's an advancement of the idea of free and fair trade and so forth. he said it would increase his own web site, the korean trade agreement would increase exports of american goods by $10 billion

to $11 billion and for -- that would support the new 70,000 jobs to be created. well, i guess four or five years gone now have we achieved a $10 billion increase in exports to our ally, our friend, our tough, smart trading partner, korea? did we get that kind of improvement? the answer is no. we're at $.8 billion. less than $1 billion. but what about korea's imports to the united states? did they go up or down? korea's imports to -- exports to the united states during this time have increased by $12 billion. so the net -- it almost doubled the trade deficit between our countries. i'm saying this because it raised a fundamental question. what is it that's happening here? and in this trade agreement people have been pretty careful, the promoters of it, they have not promised it would

reduce the trade deficit they have not promised it would create new jobs, and they not have promised it would increase wages. they suggest it, they say things like it will increase job prospects or wages in export industries. well we only export 13% of what we make, so that's the only little promise they make. because i've asked the president, written him and asked other colleagues, tell me if you believe this is going to increase jobs, tell me what studies and documents you have that would say it would increase wages. tell me, show me any report or data that would suggest that this trade agreement we now have before us would some way reduce our surging trade deficits which hit a virtual record last month, or at least in march. and they're not going to give an

answer. i have to tell you why. because jobs are going down, not up, and the trade deficit is going up and not down. and that's not -- that's not good. why do they persist in this? and i suggest it's an ideology. i've suggested it's almost a religion. that any trade agreement any file or stack of papers that has trade agreement on it, we're for. why? well i recall back in the 1990's late 1990's then federal reserve chairman alan greenspan was before committee i believe it was my budget committee i was a member of and i asked him a question. and the question was this -- mr. greenspan, if we are trading with a country and they stop buying all products from the united states and block our sales to them, but want to sell

products to the united states and want us to buy their products should we buy them or not buy them? pretty simple question. i remember it well. should we buy from them? what do you think his answer was? yes. now, i believe that's an extreme idea. i think that's an idea that in theory could have some validity but you have to know colleagues and friends it is out there. it is a fundamental part of the movement for trade agreements where people don't really care whether they are reciprocal or not, and they're not worried whether or not it shuts down plants and facilities in your community, whether people lose their jobs, because their theory is you're getting a better product and at a cheaper price and that's the only thing that counts. that's the most important thing.

and somehow this is going to all work out. and the wall street guys who manage capital, they can move their capital to anyplace in the world. and they'll do fine, they think. but nobody's thinking about what it's like in the real world where people's jobs are at stakes where our steel industry is under stress, and we're facing competition that's not fair. i just feel strongly about that. i'm -- reversing in a way my position on trade. i believe it's time for this country and this congress to begin asking tougher questions about why we continue to have this huge trade deficits, why we continue to have a decline in wages, decline in median family

income, $3,000 since 2009, why all these things are happening. and part of it is that we have been unwilling unlike our trading competitors to ask these kind of questions. we're operating on a religious view of trade, i think. how do you deal with that? i have -- mr. van dimicco wrote a very important article in "forbes" magazine a few months ago and he says the title of it is fast-track to nowhere, congress shouldn't give obama power to ram through the t.p.p. he's a former c.e.o., actually c.e.o. emeritus of new core steel. has -- nucor steel. has plants all over america and

one of our most vibrant competitive industries, they deal with foreign competition every day. he lives with it, currency and things are critical to him and anybody in the steel industry and the automobile industry the manufacturing industry, these things are real. it's not academic. it's not theory. it's real. he says a number of things and it's -- in this very important article. he talked about the cheerleaders for trade and said they make a big mistake. it's net trade not gross trade. in other words net exports increase our economic size while net imports shrink it. this is not a liberal plot or a tea party plot or a protectionist plot. it is basic and incontrovertible

economic math that the t.p.p. cheerleaders don't understand or don't want to. he goes on to say in 2013 the u.s. economy amounted to $16.8 trillion consumption was 68% of g.d.p., investment was about 16% government procurement was about 19% but net trade subtracted about 3% from our economy because imports exceeded exports. this shrinkage is cumulative compounding year after year. america is the picture of an unbalanced economy disproportionately relying on unsustainable consumption investment is too small and it goes on. he stated -- stated another way, we need to produce more of what we consume. isn't that true? so this theory doesn't make any

difference where products are made as long as it's cheaper and this is the comparative advantage and people can manipulate their currency, subsidize their industry so they can have more exports more people working and makes no difference and we can allow american businesses to fail? so -- then he talks about mercantilism. this is the strategy of most of our competitors. he said free trade was crafted as an antidote to mercantilism, not an enabler of it. so he says our trade policies not have confronted our competitors' mercantilism and therefore we've enabled them. and we've allowed them to continue. then he quotes president reagan. a lot of people say president reagan believed in total free trade. he did not. he was a realist.

so this is what mr. dimicco says. president reagan gave a speech that established the principle of fair and free trade with free trade and fair traders. more specifically, president reagan established the three r's -- rules reciprocity and results. rules means that rules are followed. reciprocity means that there will be reciprocal reductions in three-fifths quotas and other barriers rather than one-sized reductions. and finally he said results. the third r. the point most forgotten. that meant that americans must gain a net benefit from trade arrangements rather than being taken advantage of. i believe that. my father always taught me a good trading agreement a good

contract a good business deal was what both parties had an advantage of. now, another person who knew ronald reagan well clyde prestowitz. clyde was the president's counselor to the secretary of commerce in president reagan's administration and vice chairman of president clinton's commission on trade. he negotiated asian trade agreements with japan and others he was there. and he makes a very harsh statement about president obama's statements here. he said, will japanese be -- he said, will japanese be driving chevies in tokyo. the president suggested he wanted to see more american-made cars being driven in tokyo. and quoted the president as saying "why wouldn't we want to rewrite those rules so there is

some reciprocity and we can start opening up the japanese market? that would be good for american workers." mr. prestowitz responds to the president's statement saying -- quote -- "here that amazingly ignorant statement one could only wonder if there's no one in the white house to prevent the president from embarrassing himself. apparently he is unaware of the endless efforts of u.s. trade negotiators over the past 50 years to open up the japanese market. as one of the reagan administration's lead negotiators with japan and as the vice president of president clinton's commission on trade and investment in the asia-pacific region, i can assure the president that the reciprocity in trade with japan has been the aim of every agreement signed by both republican and democratic

administrations for half a century. i can also say that virtually no former u.s. trade negotiator believes that t.p.p. will achieve reciprocity with japan." they have nontrade barriers. and mr. dimicco lays out in his article and he names them. and these are not allowing for free trade reciprocal trade that produces results that are beneficial to americans. we can do better. we absolutely need more trade. we continue to negotiate good trade agreements. but this creates a situation that i think is dangerous. well what kind of numbers do we have about this agreement? do we have any studies anybody that says anything other than what i believe that it's going

to be a net negative to our balance of trade? well the "wall street journal," who supports the trade agreement had an article by mr. malden that examines a study by mr. peter petri professor of international finance at brandeis university. this was just released this week. may 18, or at least this article was. he talks about the auto sector. mr. petri has done this study. it's the only study i know that's dealt with the question. in the transportation sector the article said "led by cars, the t.p.p. could boost imports to the united states from japan by $30.8 billion by 2025. compared with export gains to

japan of $7.8 billion, according to mr. petri. that sounds like the korean agreement. so we would get -- we would export $7.8 billion more but japan would export $30.8 billion more to us. the result is what? less american manufacturing on net, more cars being bought from abroad and a greater detriment to our trade balance. that's just the way it is. so i believe we need to get away from the is -- the religious view of trade and we need to do what president reagan said, let's look at the results. don't tell me some theory. let's live in the real world. and it's our duty to see our

manufacturers our workers get a fair chance to compete in the world marketplace. we're not doing sufficiently in that. mr. president, as a part of this trade agreement that i've mentioned before that i'm very concerned about that's gotten very little discussion and it needs to be discussed and i want to take a minute to discuss it. according to the congressional research service our own group the t.p.p.'s living agreement provisions is unprecedented. indeed i'm one of the few i think that went to the secret room to read the secret document. and when it described the living document, it said was unprecedented. i presume i won't be arrested for making that quote from the secret document. the united states trade representative's web site is very candid about the purpose of this living agreement provision.

it is to -- quote -- "enable the updating of the agreement as appropriate to address trade issues that emerge in the future as well as new issues that arise with the expansion of the agreement to include new countries. ly" -- to include new countries." it creates a commission, another commission consisting of representatives from each member nation which has vast powers to govern the agreement. and govern, to some degree, the countries who participate in it. among the powers given to the commission is the authority to consider any matter relating to implementation and operation of the agreement and to consider amendments and modifications. what we have to understand is that this is a new entity an international entity of which we

are a member and it gets to meet and vote and set new behaviors, unlike what we approve in the senate. but it can be amended as time goes by. and it's unprecedented. this has not been done before. the t.p.p. states that those amendments must be agreed to -- quote -- "in accordance with the applicable legal procedures of each party." but that praise is not define -- but that phrase is not defined. the t.p.p. chapter summary a book that is provided to the members when we go to the secret roonl -- secret room states that this process this amendment process would occur similar to the process that occurs under the w.t.o., the world trade organization. so it says, how will it -- the procedures be handled? like w.t.o.

but under w.t.o. and its implementing legislation changes to the agreement and the addition of new parties are not to be approved by congress and are adopted, more importantly by -- not by consensus or unanimous vote but the chapter summary states that this process will be similar to the w.t.o. under which the w.t.o. can be -- members can be added and certain amendments adopted by a two-thirds vote. so it gives the appearance of having consensus as the basis which we know from the e.u. and nato means unanimous but in reality the w.t.o. used that language too but it's not followed. in addition, new member nations under w.t.o. can be added by only a two-thirds majority. that's pretty clear on the w.t.o. and at apparently would be clear under this agreement. so we've asked the president what does this mean?

could china be added by a simple majority vote and we vote "no" and it happens anyway? in fact, the united states gets sued more than anybody in the w.t.o. people challenging what we do. so we asked the united states trade representative staff about this situation. they didn't have an answer. this is a staff for the administration pushing for the bill. rather, they simply asserted that changes to the t.p.p. affecting u.s. law would require congressional approval. and we asked whether ustr would agree to make that explicit in the t.p.p. so we didn't have a a -- wouldn't have any ambiguity. and they've not -- they've declined to give us a reply. so if it's true, that congressional approval is required then why shouldn't

they be willing to have it explicitly in the t.p.a. and the in the t.p.p.? in fact, there are already examples in the t.p.p. of other countries making clear that certain procedures must comply with their domestic law. why don't we make ours clear? i've offered an amendment to that effect and i'm disappointed that it's apparently not going to be given a vote. while t.p.a. states that no standard trade agreement that has not been legislatively implemented can trump existing federal, state or local law or prevent any federal state or local government from amending or modifying its law that implementing legislation of a trade agreement would do these things and could and certainly will in many areas. it will delegate congressional authority when we pass it to the new t.p.p. commission. so by voting for it, we've

delegated authority it will be contended, and probably correctly, that we gave it to them to amend law. this is especially important because the whole purpose of fast-track is to implement -- expedite this legislation. so i think these trade agreements need to be considered carefully by congress and the american people before the united states cedes one iota more of american authority and the sovereignty and congress u.s. in retain the power to carefully review and vote on all future changes to these trade agreements. as mr. mark hendrick son recently wrote in forbes magazine discussing what i had said about this, said the t.p.p. cannot be a -- quote -- "open-ended document," lest the

rule of law and republican government itself be lost, closed quote. and that's why t.p.a. must provide strong and enforceable protections against this kind of overreach. we just have to be careful. the normal process for treaties is a rigorous one. it requires in the end a two-thirds vote. so they've written this not as a treaty but as an agreement and it will be moved forward in a way so when the final agreement hits the floor it will be unamendable, it will be not subject to a 60-vote threshold to move forward and can be passed within 20 hours without a single amendment without -- on a summer unor down vote. -- up-or-down vote. i really believe colleagues, it's time for us to move away from a religious view on trade

and go by what's happening in the real world. if our businesses, our manufacturers and our american workers are not being treated fairly on the world stage, we should take action to ensure that they are. i believe in trade and i've supported over the years -- and i've supported it over the years, but i think it's time for us, in light of declining wages declining middle class surging trade deficits to ask ourselves -- can't we do better with our trade agreements? and here we have this huge one representing 40% of the world economy creating a new commission with all kinds of powers to be able to add new members that we may not approve of. and we're just going to pass it hardly without reading it? very few senators have been to the secret room to see what's in the document. mr. president, i thank the chair and would yield the floor.

mr. nelson: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: mr. president i'm going to speak on the three bills that are pending in front of us -- the trade billing the highway bill and -- the trade bill, the highway bill and the continuation of the patriot act. mr. president, every one of us is in love with our cars. america is in love with her cars. and every one of us can remember the first time that we learned to drive. i started out on country roads in an international pickup truck with cow bodies on the side -- that is the wooden slats that go

out so i could put my heifers on the little ranch that i had so that i could haul them around. and that was how i got to and from high school. and every one of us has a different story like that. and america has been spoiled because of the automobile -- spoiled. because of the automobile, it has now become an exceptionally creature comfort room in which we can suddenly climb in and lose ourself in beautiful music comfortable seats while easily accessible in the cupholders, a cup of coffee. but america's love affair with

the automobile won't do us any good if we don't have any roads to drive on, and especially if the roads are just filled with potholes or if you can't go across the bridges because they are in danger of falling down. and of course it leads us to the obvious that here in front of us is the highway bill, a transportation bill, which involves other things as well, transportation safety, considerable transportation enhancements in urban areas but we can't get together even though probably every one of the members of the senate would

agree that we have to pass a highway bill, but the problem is we can't figure out how to fund it. now, it has to be funded with something called revenue. you've either got to take it out of the general revenues of the u.s. government, and lord knows those are attempted to be cut back with this meat cleaver approach across the board called the sequester, the results of which, for example we've had the joint chiefs up here telling us that this is going to severely hamper their ability to protect the national security. we've had the head of n.i.h. up here telling about the

consequences of the sequester in the past in which a few years ago when the sequester kicked in he had to cancel 700 medical research grants, all of which almost all of us would support because of the extraordinary medical research successes that are going on. so general revenue out of the u.s. government treasury is going to be hard to come by to fund the highway bill, and if we do this months, two months, six months extension all that is is saying we're going to pull that out of general revenue and then transportation companies

departments of transportation back in our respective states can't plan on building the roads because they have to have such lead times for the design and engineering, and then eventually the building of the roads. it's kind of like building an aircraft carrier. you can't just go out and appropriate money for an aircraft carrier in one year. it's going to take, in the case of an aircraft carrier a decade to build. well it doesn't take a decade to build most of our roads but you clearly have to plan ahead to know that the money's there so that you can proceed. so what good is america's lover affair with the automobile if we don't have the efficient roads to drive on?

so where's the money coming from? well some people have suggested a sales tax. others have suggested updating the gas tax. others want to look to general revenue. mr. president, it is time for us to come together and determine what that should be, and i can say that the senate that this senator will consider anything that will give us the revenue so that we can build this crumbling infrastructure particularly roads and bridges. one of the things that immediately does is it creates all kinds of jobs because i have seen one commentary.

i don't know that this is accurate, but it illustrates the point. you spend a billion dollars in building roads and it is some huge number, thousands and thousands of construction jobs. so let's get real. let's come up with the revenue. now that's the finance committee. one place to start is the gas tax. the gas tax has not been updated. it needs also that when it is updated, it needs to be calculated for the increases in the cost of living over time. it needs since it is a user tax, perhaps to be combined with other sources of revenue but we're going to have to face the music and come up with the

revenue, and one of the things that's holding us up right here, right now on a friday right after noon, just before memorial day weekend is figuring out what we're going to do on continuing the highway bill authorization. one of the other issues in front of us is the trade bill. this senator is one of the democrats that has voted for the trade bill known as fast-track, which is to enact a procedure that when the pacific trade agreement is negotiated, finalized and announced that it can be considered by the congress after ample time for

examination, that it would then be considered with an up-or-down vote instead of the normal process where it would be subject to amendment. you put a trade bill together with another 11 nations in the pacific region. if it were subject to the amendatory process here in the senate and the house it would get pecked to death. it would never survive the legislative wars. and thus the need for this trade promotion authority the t.p.a. that we have in front of us. i believe that we will pass it. i believe that it will be an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote and i believe that a big vote out of the senate will send a significant message to the house

where there are some rumblings of problem but at the end of the day when the joint commanders in chiefs come in front of you and say that this is one of the most important things for them, for the national security interests of the united states in that region of the world the pacific arena then at the end of the day it likely will pass. and in this senator's judgment, it will be in the interests of our country. and the third issue that is before the senate is the patriot act. now, every one of us, if we were here whether you were here or not, you remember exactly where you were on that fateful day of

september 11 2001. a number of us were in a room right off the floor right over here on the west front. we were in a meeting with the democratic leader, the majority leader senator daschle and the meeting starting at 9:00, as we saw this grainy black and white tv of what had happened in new york the human mind wants to play tricks and deny the reality of what was happening that, in fact, it was no accident that two planes had flown into the two distinct towers of the world trade center. but then all doubt was cast

aside when suddenly someone burst into the room and said the pentagon has been hit. we leapt to the window overlooking the west side over the mall, looked in the direction of the peght and -- of the pentagon, and sure enough, there was the black smoke rising where the third plane had hit. i immediately raced to a telephone to try to reach my wife because we had just moved into an apartment overlooking the southwest corner of the pentagon. i wanted to tell her to get out of the apartment and move down into the basement. i couldn't reach her and by the time i came back, the room was vacated. out into the hall and i saw

security take the majority leader and the minority leader off in a different direction, in a pre-arranged place for the congressional leadership in times of national security and national attack, and then i'll never forget going down those major stairs right out this door of the senate chamber and at the bloment of the -- bottom of the stairs, the capitol police shouting at the top of their lungs, get out of the building, get out of the building, run run! they had heard the reports that there was a fourth airplane inbound. that was a fateful day. as i huddled up outside with senator rockefeller and us trying to get hold of our staff to tell them to vacate later in

the day when the capitol police told senator rockefeller and me not to come back to the capitol complex, we ended up at senator rockefeller's home, me still desperately trying to get my wife on the telephone and i'll never forget the eerie silence over washington because all air traffic had been stopped and that silence pierced by f-15's and f-16's as they were flying cap over the nation's capital. well, because of that attack that killed some 3,000 americans -- the first time, by the way that we were rudely awakened to the fact that our

national security was not protected here at home by two big oceans that an enemy could in fact, attack and attack within. then how to go after to prevent it in the future? that led to the patriot act. that led to trying to give our intelligence community and the n.s.a. the national security agency the tools by which when the bad guys are planning, wherever they are abroad or here and that we get some snippet of evidence that they're planning a dastardly deed, that we can give our intelligence community and our law enforcement the tools to try to

go after them. now, let me give you an example. it used to be that if we would invade somebody's privacy by going after their telephone we would have to get a court order to be able to tap that telephone. well come in to present-day technology. the terrorist doesn't use just one telephone. the telephone they use now is multiple cell phones, and therefore you had to update the law to allow you to be able to go after and see who they were calling but not from one telephone, from multiple telephones. that's just one example of how the law was updated.

and the law also was updated which allowed the n.s.a. to be able at their request of the telephone companies to obtain the business records -- not the private conversations only the business records that showed on such and such a date, this number called this number and for how long. all the telephone companies didn't comply. a lot of them did. and the patriot act was enacted to allow a process whereby you would go to the court a

special court classified for national security information called the fisa court and that court would give the appropriate legal authority for the n.s.a. to obtain those records. now, this whole disagreement in front of the senate is over how you hold those business records. it has been misstated on the floor of the senate that this is obtaining private conversations, invading privacy. this is just the question of how you hold those records. the current law that there will be an attempt to extend the

current law which i have some degree of positive attitude toward which is at the request of the n.s.a. that those records are held by n.s.a., the telephone business records. but the legislation that we're going to vote on, the u.s.a. freedom act is a change, a slight change of the current law. and it is that those records would still be retained by the telephone companies, that they would have to retain those records and not destroy them for some period of time that you would go -- the government if they suspect a terrorist

activity, they would go to get a court order to obtain the business records of a particular number or person subject to a judge's order just like we do if law enforcement or the f.b.i. wants to go into our home and get evidence to have to go to a court showing probable cause to the judge that, in fact, there may have been a crime committed committed, same process you go to the classified court that can handle the classified information, and the court gives an order to obtain those business records. why is that important? it's important because if we get a snippet of information that such and such a terrorist or

such and such a number that has been used by the terrorist or someone suspected to have been talking to a terrorist then in order to protect ourselves the intelligence community and law enforcement are going to have to go and get the record so they can see where that call went and from that person or number, where it wept, one more hop with a limit of two hops. this senator prefers not to have those limitations. but that's not what's in front of us. and so this senator from florida is going to support the u.s.a. freedom act because it is so

necessary that by the end of this month the patriot act does not cease to exist because of all the other provisions in it that allow our intellectual property rights to try to get the information to protect us before the terrorist can strike. i can tell you as a former member of the intelligence committee at a time that this patriot act was drawn up and later amended, i can tell you as a senior member of the senate armed services committee, it is my judgment that this is clearly in the national security interest we cannot take the risk to let the patriot act cease to exist so that we do not have the tools to protect ourselves.

my final comment is, every day these bad guys are trying to do us in. every day they're trying all kinds of things to find what is the little nuance or what is the little defect in our defenses. if we do not continue this legislation as i'm suggesting be amended by the legislation in front of us, then, in fact, we're not giving just a little crack in door for the terrorists to get in, we're opening up the entire barndoor. that clearly is not in the interest of the united states. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: mr. president i rise today to talk -- speak to the evolving situation in the middle east. i have grave concerns as do a

majority of americans with the president's handling of the current situation in that region of the world. under this president's watch the world has become increasingly unsafe. under this president's watch despots have dug in and the most horrific terrorist attack organize we've seen has thrived. this week the reality of this failure was brought to the forefront of the world's attention, the fall of ramadi marks the capture of another major city. mr. president, we lost more than 1,300 u.s. soldiers in anbar province. thousands more were we need. we fought across every foot of al anbar and now a handful have seized this provincial capital. this cost them everything. hundreds have already been executed at the and of isis but the white house doesn't see it that way.

they have been downplaying the significance of this defeat and when the significance is challenged the white house doubles down. the press secretary said -- and i quote -- "are we going to light our hair on fire every time that there is a setback in the campaign against isil" -- end quote. such comments are dumbfounding and disturbing. the obama administration's not only demonstrating a complete lack of situational awareness but a total disconnect with how this conflict is being viewed by thest of the world. in fact, this week president obama chose to lecture the graduating class of the coast guard academy about climate change. while ramadi burned. the isis combatants, the fall of ramadi was a definitive victory. wean if it hands ramadi back tomorrow it has shown the capability to make major advances. the to those living there isis

has already won. regardless of what happens next for many people their lives have been destroyed. the potential recruits around the world isis just won again despite u.s. airstrikes and 3,000 trainers for the iraqi army. however, according to secretary of state john kerry the fall of ramadi was only isis taking advantage of -- and i quote -- "a target of opportunity." does the obama administration not understand how terrorist organizations operate? isis isn't going to line up and go toe to toe with the united states. it is going to seek out targets of opportunity wherever it can and avoid conflicts where it knows it will lose. that's how they operate. that's how it's been operating since the beginning of this conflict. all the way back to january 2014 when president obama referred to isis as the junior varsity of terrorist organizations. ramadi can be retaken.

america can defeat isis. but we can't beat isis with half measures while consistently underestimating its capabilities this terrorist organization must be stomped out it must be defeated. in syria isis is now in control of pal myra. an an -- paul myra, an ancient site that may soon be destroyed. called the venice of the sands this may be another historical scar left by isis that will never heal. president obama often speaks of regional powers needing to step up and take the lead. let's be honest here for a moment. the united states has the most powerful military in the history of the world. if our president doesn't show a little leadership, no one else is going to step up and lead. if we are not going to utilize our overwhelming technological superiority to fight this

enemy, at the very least at the very least embedding spotters with iraqi forces to make airstrikes more effective why would others want to contribute their far more limited resources? we need our president to show absolute conviction that defeating isis is his number-one priority. not trying to reach a mediocre compromise on an iranian nuclear deal, not having secretary kerry fly to sochi to shake hands with putin while he occupies the territories of other countries not a summit at camp david to lecture our allies on what america thinks is in their best interest, there is a terror organization killing people as we speak in a country that we fought to liberate from a brutal dictator. we had won in iraq. we had defeated this insurgency until it was determined for political reasons we should pack up and go home. the president claims he doesn't want to get dragged into another

prolonged war. unfortunately, that is exactly what he is doing. there is no way to beat isis with half measures. there is no way to negotiate with isis. unless isis is defeated, it will grow and spread like a cancer. this president throughout his administration has shown himself to be crippled by indecision. against isis we need decisive action and we need it now. mr. president, i also want to speak today to recognize the tremendous and selfless service of america's veterans. this week congress honored american fighter aces, the 14,447 military pilots who earned the special distinction of destroying five or more hostile aircraft in air-to-air combat by awarding them the congressional gold medal.

of these distinguished aviators, ten hailed from south dakota. while they're no longer with us today, their heroism and valor have built the foundation of the modern air superiority our armed services employee today but have shaped who we are as south dakotans and americans. becoming an ace was no easy feat. in the first world war the pioneers of dog fighting faced perilous situations g situations in biplains in airplanes that could barely top a hundred miles an hour. still these innovators defined the technology of flight and forever changed the nature of modern war. decades later american pilots proved invaluable in turning the tide of the second world war. fighters flew attack and bomber escort sorties over europe and attack and fleet protection missions in the pacific. just two weeks ago when america and the world celebrated the 75th anniversary of the v.e.

day, 56 world war ii era aircraft flew over the world war ii memorial, the national mall and the u.s. capitol in an impressive display of the air power that helped secure victory for the allies. the airline parade included an f-6 hell cat, which my dad flew off the u.s.s. intrepid in the pacific theater. while my dad was one airline victory short of achieving ace his squadronmate and fellow saadian -- south dakotan cecil harris racked up that victories. harris a farm boy from south dakota earned ended the war as the second highest navy ace. south dakota also produced the second highest ace in the marine corps during world war ii, medal of honor recipient joe foss who earned the title of ace in just one week in 1942 on his way to a total of 26 air victories.

his leadership in air service continued after the war. he helped organize south dakota's air guard unit. he was recalled to active duty in the korean war. he went on to serve two terms as south dakota's governor. and even as the first commissioner of the american football league. our airport back in sioux falls foss' hometown, is home to the 114th fighter wing and is appropriately named "joe foss field." south dakota is also proud and grateful for the service of our other eight aces -- clarence johnson from aberdeen who was killed in action over holland in 1944. robert graham from beersford. robert buckey from lemon. leroy growthhereby from mennow. leslie clark from mitchell. arthur johnson jr. from new efington. jean markham from turton. and robert "duke" hedman from webster, who achieved ace in a single day on christmas day

1941. when you come from rural america, it can be hard sometimes to see how one might fit into the larger scheme of global events, let alone the defining moments in our history. yet when the world erupted in chaos during the second world war, these were 10 south dakotans in the thick of it. and these are but 10 heroic examples of the dedicated selflessness south dakotans have shown in conflicts past and present. mr. president, south dakotans have always punched above their weight when it comes to military service. as the age of jets arrived and the capabilities of aerial firepower and defense systems increased the title of "ace" became even more illusive. still on wednesday we celebrated the 40 american aces from the korean war as well as two pilots and three weapons systems officers from the vietnam war. the maturation of our air combat capabilities from the origins of aerial combat from byplanes to the sophisticated air frames and advanced weapons systems on which we rely today rests

heavily upon the courage of american fighter aces. these aviators represent the best of our american armed forces and helped shape history with their courage. mr. president, as we reflect on the gallant service of america's fighter aces may we also remember all of those who answered the call to serve all of those who supported the effort on the home front and those to home -- to whom, i should say, we are forever indebted, those who made the ultimate sacrifice. this memorial day as a free and grateful nation may we remember those who have fought and died for this country. thank you mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. gardner: thank you mr. president. i rise today to talk and continue the conversation that

we are having in the senate about trade and the need to pass trade promotion authority and all geared toward hopeful entry and final conclusion of a trans-pacific partnership agreement that this senate will be able to vote on to approve or disapprove -- if it's not a good bargain -- and eventual conclusion of a treaty with the european union t-tip and what we can do to make sure we're fashioning a trade partnership in this country to truly grow our economy. one of the things that has made me so passionate over the years about public service has been the economic circumstance and conditions of rural america what happens to main streets across our great nation that are suffering that have more boarded-up storefronts that they've ever had at many other times in history. and perhaps one of the great e things that we could do right now to -- greatest things that we could do right now to help main street and create new jobs and opportunity is to pass trade promotion authority later today tomorrow, whenever we get to it, to make sure that it passes without provisions that could break up any future

negotiations, but do so in a way that allows agreements to be entered into, like the trans-pacific partnership. all benefiting rural america and particularly rural colorado. to make rural america more successful, we have to find new ways to bring new value to those things that we can produce in rural america whether it's wheat crops are on corn crops or a small manufacturing business. how do we add value to what is produced in and across rural america? according to a 2012 peterson institute for international economics, a study estimated that industries across this country could see a% increase in added value as a result of a finalized trans-pacific agreement. so when we talk about adding value to crops and adding value to goods produced in rural america, this study shows right here that if we pass trade promotion authority move to successful conclusion of t.p.p., it adds value to what we produce

across this country, creating jobs and opportunity. there are a lot of people who are concerned about trade promotion authority people who are may be opposed to it, people worried that it may not create the kind of value that others believe that it will. but the conservative heritage foundation had a study that showed trade adding $1.7 billion to our g.d.p. in 2013. in fact, this same study showed that according to the heritage foundation trade brings value to the average american household of over $13,000 per family. that's $13,000 per family added to spending in a household adding to income in a household excuse me, that they would be able to succeed -- to achieve greater opportunity to raise their value of -- of life, to raise their quality of life. all because and possible through trade. the trade promotion authority is the first step that we will take

in this chamber and across the -- across the hall to the united states house of representatives to make sure that we are giving the tools to our negotiators to develop the best strongest possible agreement. now, this agreement just doesn't say, "do whatever you want." this agreement has sideboards on it fire walls that create opportunities to enter into the best deal possible, that direct our negotiators to tear down barriers. some of the concerns i hear from people who may be unsure about the passage of trade promotion authority seems to be, this is about big business, isn't it? this is only going to benefit those corporations who are the biggest in the united states? but that's simply not true. because what free trade agreements allow us to do is to tear down trade barriers, it allows us to break those barriers that are creating impediments to doing business. in fact, if you're a big business corporate welfare has become a common way that you're actually trying to succeed in this country. corporate welfare where you have a lobbyist you can pay on are a team of lobbyists that you can pay to provide to -- to get -- or to gain a special tax

preference. or maybe there's a trade barrier that you would like thrown up against another nation who's importing goods into the united states and this big corporation says, you know what, we think we can stop this through special interest favors. and so what is advantaging big business is corporate welfare. by entering into a free trade agreement by passing trade promotion authority allowing us to tear down those trade barriers like the t.p.p. will it actually helps all businesses in this country by eliminating corporate welfare. by taking out the advantage that a big business has to hire a lobbyist to curry favor through legislation. giving a business value through the trade agreement to sell their goods around the world. so trans-pacific partnership trade promotion authority these are agreements that focus on sending goods from main street to malaysia. what we can do to increase opportunity in colorado and

beyond because everybody in colorado is benefiting right now from free markets and free trade 265,000 colorado jobs are supported by trade with nations that are represented in the trans-pacific in fact, 48% of all colorado goods, 48% of the goods that we create in colorado were exported to nations represented in the t.p.p. the trans-pacific partnership. and in a state that exported over $8.4 billion worth of goods, we can see the kind of jobs and economic opportunity that trade promotion authority will lead to. in fact, there's been economists who've talked about bill lars pillars of our commitment of one pillar being low taxes one pillar being spending restraint one pillar being lessening the regulatory burden on businesses around this country. but another pillar is trade and the ability to create goods here

in the united states, to send them overseas. that creates jobs and opportunity for all of us. whether it's our agricultural commodities, whenl it is manufacturing in colorado, aerospace or technology, we know that we will benefit from a strong agreement that tears down barriers giving big and small businesses alike the opportunity to enter into a promising economic opportunity that we will all share in. mr. president, i also rise today to talk about this upcoming weekend. people and families across this country will be celebrating memorial day sharing time with families and friends celebrating the weekend. in colorado, normally you'd be celebrating by maybe going to the lake or a hike in the mountains or down the river. but unfortunately the weather may not be as nice as it has been in past years. we're receiving much-needed rain and moisture. but it may not let up in time for a lot of the outdoor

activities that we would normally enjoy over memorial day. but one thing that won't be dampened, one thing that won't stop is the observation of memorial day and the tribute the thoughts, the remembrance that we pay to those who served our country. now, it may be a little wetter than normal, it may be a little more tense than perhaps the jacket that we usually have, coloradans will still go to the cemetery paying their respects, they'll still share stories in their families -- with their families about the members of their family that have served this country who have given so much and sacrificed so great for this country. it's 70 years ago this year that one of the colorado guard units was involved in world war ii, the liberation of dachau. 70 yearsing a -- 70 years ago

felix sparks was one of the first to arrive on the atrocious scene, some that no doubt will be on the minds of many veterans across the country and in colorado this year, the sacrifices that they have given so that all around this world -- all people around this world will be able to enjoy liberty share in the democracy that free people have. and where we can continue to provide opportunities to enrich liberty, to promote democracy. that's what this nation will continue to do thanks to the the sacrifices of our veterans and the noble goals and efforts of those men and women in uniform today. mr. president, thank you. i yield back my time and wish the people of colorado and this country a very good memorial day weekend. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. gardner: i ask unanimous consent that the senate recess today following the remarks of senator blumenthal for up to five minutes until 2:00 p.m. and

that the time during recess count postcloture. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. blumenthal: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you mr. president. i join my friend and colleague from colorado in celebrating and saluting on this historic day the service and sacrifice of so many of our military men and women who have given their lives so that could enjoy the precious freedoms that all of us will benefit from the over this weekend the freedom to gather as we wish, speak as we please, worship and gather together with friends. all these freedoms are due to the service and sacrifice of the men and women whose lives we celebrate this weekend. as it happens as well, my office is issuing a report that shows

our veterans and service members often are victims of practices around the discounts and promotions that will be offered this weekend. many of the retailers will offer -- many of the retailers will offer sales and discounts to our veterans. and, in fact, our veterans are twice as likely as the ordinary population and the general public to be victims of identity theft and fraud because they are asked to provide information in connection with taking advantage of these discounts. i'm proposing reforms to be adopted by the department of defense under existing authority and these reforms will save veterans from identity theft and fraud when retailers offer discounts but demand sensitive

personal information. a national recognition of service card will honor our heroes and save them from scammers who may prey on them after they provide this information. retailers who commendably -- and i emphasize commendably -- offer veterans discounts, especially around this holiday and others, should not put them at undue risk in verifying their status. as memorial day approaches and we celebrate it today the department of defense should adopt the recommendations of the report that i am offering today and i will offer legislation if necessary, to compel these kinds of reforms. our veterans and service members need and deserve commonsense protection so discounts don't become really bad deals. and the reforms like the national recognition of service

card can guarantee privacy and protection for our veterans and service members even as they take advantage of the discounts and promotions that will be offered to them over this memorial day weekend and avoid disclosure of information to third parties that may not protect that information as they should. i want to say a few words about the choice currently before this body in connection with the freedom act and the patriot act words that come to mind over this memorial day weekend so often and frequently on our lips and this issue before our body is a pro foundly important one -- profoundly important one. it has been framed as a question of whether the senate passes the u.s.a. freedom act or the short-term extension of the patriot act that authorities say

is a compromise. there is supposedly a compromise before this body, but let's keep in mind the u.s.a. freedom act is in fact, a compromise. it reflects the views of hawks and doves democrats and republicans, the house and the senate the congress, the executive branch and the judiciary. many of us have made significant concessions to reach the u.s.a. freedom act. in fact, i have wondered at times whether to walk away from this so-called compromise because it does too little in the way of reform and perhaps shortchanges the proposals that i and others have made to protect privacy and balance that protection with the very profoundly important need to preserve our national security.

a short-term extension is not a compromise. the u.s.a. freedom act is in fact already a compromise, and that is why i have opposed and will continue to oppose a short-term extension even when it is portrayed and depicted as a compromise, as has happened so far. and another important point here is that a short-term extension will not solve our problem. a short-term extension simply is an invitation for more uncertainty, more litigation, more expense and in fact, more compromise to our national security. the second circuit court of appeals has made absolutely crystal clear that if congress authorizes section 215 the second circuit will read it as disallowing bulk collection. that court held, and i quote --

"if congress fails to reauthorize section 215 itself or re-enacts 215 without expanding it to authorize the telephone metadata program the program will end." end of quote. that means that if congress passes the so-called short-term reauthorization phone companies in new york, connecticut and vermont will not be able to comply with a bulk collection order. around the nation, the court of appeals ruling is the law of the land or should be given that respect, and it will be unclear around the land and throughout this country what kind of order in fact is demanding of them. the result is likely to be legal uncertainty that will last long

after congress decides to act. the only way to avoid endless litigation is to pass legislation that specifies when section 215 allows, what it allows what it does not allow and the only proposal that does that task is the u.s.a. freedom act. i continue to believe that one of the central core provisions of the u.s.a. freedom act is that it requires transparency and the adversarial process containing reforms that i propose to make sure that this court, the fisa court is no longer a secret tribunal considering arguments in secret and issuing secret opinions. exactly the kind of court that prompted our rebellion from the english. and when it operates and when it hears arguments it should hear

both sides. it should hear from an adversary to the government that offers a different point of view. courts make better decisions when they hear both sides of the argument, and that's why i have proposed from the start a constitutional advocate that will make arguments against the government without compromising the need for timely warrants and other surveillance and without in any way reducing the secrecy of this court where it's appropriate. i hope that this body reaches a result that includes the u.s.a. freedom act. i hope that we pass it. i urge my colleagues to join in supporting it, and i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum.

i withdraw my observation of the absence of a quorum, mr. president. the presiding officer: under the previous order the senate stands in recess until 2:00.

a ent? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mcminimum wage a glad the senate vote. mr. mcconnell: i'm glad the senate voted yesterday to take another step for >> i'm glad the senate voted yesterday to take another step forward on an important trade legislation that is before us. this bill represents an opportunity for republicans and democrats to sign together for the middle class. some of our friends across the aisle will allow us to seize this opportunity and i'm optimistic. we all know that trade is

important for american workers and american jobs and we all know that by passing this legislation we can show we are serious about advancing new opportunities for bigger american paybacks, paychecks, better american jobs and a stronger american economy. we want to process as many amendments as we can peer the republican and democratic bill manager, senator hatch senator wyden have done a good job in a bipartisan manner thus far. my hope is that some cooperation across the aisle they can vote on amendments today and complete work on this trade legislation today. i appreciate all the hard work from both sides that god is to the part we are today. let's keep the momentum going so we can finally pass a bill that republicans, president obama and many democrats all agree is good for the middle-class, good for the economy and good for our

country. let's also go forward in the same spirit to finish work on the other issues on the senate to do less. i will speak about one of them in just a moment. we have to get our work done however long it takes. the bipartisan cooperation we can get it done as soon as this afternoon. i'm the issue i mentioned following the attacks of september 11th, the united states cruised a flawed to better understand the terrorist threat rather than the threat -- rather than treated as a crime to be handled by civilian prosecution to combat as a matter of warfare and as a crime, but a matter of warfare. that doesn't mean al qaeda and its affiliates stood still. the terrorist threat into regional affiliates such as al qaeda in the arabian peninsula,

al-shabaab al qaeda in iraq and aqim we've already seen the advance in iraq in the levant and iraqi military ground operation actually sees ramadi last weekend. it is emblematic of how the threat continues to evolve. last week the director of sbi explain how isil is now using social media to radicalize america by making contact through twitter and direct demand to encrypted venues. moreover, through the publication of online magazines, al qaeda and isil are able to reveal tactics needed for small-scale attacks here at home. these type pics along with information gained by terrorist

networks from the unlawful disclosure of classified information by edward snowden detect terrorist plots and communication. this all comes from a madam president at a moment of elevated threats to the american people. the l.a. times recently reported. this is what the times had to say. i'm on about the growing threat from the islamic threat dramatically stepping up warnings on american soil after several years of relative calm. behind the scenes from a u.s. authorities have raised defenses and u.s. military bases, local police forces on alert and increased surveillance at the nation's airports, railroads shopping malls and other potential targets. driving the unease or fbi

arrests of at least 30 americans on terrorist related charges this year and an array of lone wolf plot. an unsuccessful, but all purportedly inspired by islamic state propaganda or appeals. out as the article be included in the record at the conclusion of my remarks. >> without objection. >> we need to recognize terrorist attack nixon the nature of the threat had changed another moment of elevated threat it would take firmer intelligence community any of the viable tools needed to build a complete picture of terrorist networks and their plans. such as the bulk data collection program in section 215. the intelligence community needs these tools to protect us from these attacks. i would like to quote the observation that someone intimately familiar with this

program made in the aftermath of the unauthorized leaks by edward snowden. this program does not involve the content of phone calls are the names of people making calls he said. instead it provides a record of phone numbers and at times and links of calls come in many data queried if and when we have a reasonable suspicion that a particular number is linked to a terrorist organization. he then describes why the program is necessary. the program grew out of a desire to address a gap identified after 9/11. one of the 9/11 hijackers leadoff made a phone call from san diego to a known al qaeda safe house. >> relayed this re-air from the senate floor to take you live to the white house briefing room for remarks by josh earnest. >> nice to see well. apologize for the late start

today. to paraphrase it is friday and we've got a lot of stuff to do. [laughter] with that do you want to get started? >> i would have started. as the white house concerned now than we learned hillary clinton send e-mail on her private server that's been classified and could there be more to come? >> nedra as you know, the state department following through on their promise has publicly released the e-mails that have been previously submitted to congress in the context of their ongoing investigation into the tragic event of september 11 2012. the fact is that when these kinds of e-mails are reviewed for public release, consistent with foia standards it is not

uncommon for the materials included in the review to be classified based on current events. so it is not uncommon for information previously unclassified two upon later review in based on changing events in the world be deemed classified. this is a determination in this case made by the federal bureau of investigation and for questions about their decision to make this classified i would prefer you to them. what is also true and what we know about the contents of the materials as they do not change in any way anyone's understanding about the events of that tragic event. >> do you think that someone should classify this material earlier? >> that is not at all a judgment i can make. this is a judgment made by the fbi recently in light of more

recent events, even though the e-mail was as we know nearly three years old. for why they made the decision and what that conclusion is, i refer you to them. >> are you concerned that there could be more classified material despite the assurances given that they did not than classified materials? >> that assurance remains true today. that was not classified at the time it was sent or received. again, i can't speak to the content of the e-mails. there is a rigorous process in place to review them and release them as expeditiously as possible. >> on another topic, does the united states believe the islamic state behind the mosque -- [inaudible] >> it is a layer. this is obviously a tragic event that occurred overnight. it is indicative of some of the extremist tactics we have seen. the fact is when extremists like

this carry out violent attacks in this case all of the dems were muslims. that is unfortunately all too common and so we obviously mourn the loss of life and condemn this violence. the attribution the determination of who is responsible if something still under review. >> how can the president proved today that the freedom i am the patriot act will inspire without any replacement and while the activities authorized stop or is there some kind of plan b and is there a risk to security of the committees to stop. >> roberta, the administration is quite concerned about the fact the united states senate has refused to take up and pass the commonsense bipartisan compromise that was crafted in the house of representatives. this is a compromise proposal

that was painstakingly crafted with a significant input of the intelligence community and the goal of the compromise was to write legislation that would give our national security officials the authorities they need to keep us safe while ensuring the privacy rights of the american people are protected. after thousands of hours of meetings and painstaking work on whatever one would acknowledge is a very complicated policy issue a reasonable bipartisan compromise emerged. the bipartisan compromise for the support of 338 members of the house of representatives. we spent a lot of time talking before about how difficult this congress in particular has found it to be to do even simple things to find common ground on simple policy proposals.

this policy proposal is extraordinary complicated and has significant consequences for the national security of this country and the basic civil liberties of the american people. the point is the hard work on this has been done. it was done in response to a call from the president of the united states almost a year and a half ago. many of you recall this. he gave a speech at the department of justice in january 2014 where he called on important reforms to be put in place to better strike a balance between protecting civil liberties and the country. that work finally has gotten done. the refusal of the senate to consider the legislation in a similarly bipartisan. but that risk not just the bipartisan compromise but it puts at risk the ability of our national security professionals to keep us safe.

and that is why we continue to call on members of congress -- members of the senate in both parties to take up and pass the u.s.a. freedom act today. >> so if it doesn't quite work out a mac is there any administrative fix the white house has at its disposal? >> good question. you asked it before. i didn't get to it. i have a good answer. there is no reason the time he should be an issue. the house has passed a compromise proposal. the senate needs to take up and pass the same proposal. the president will sign it immediately. the risk of relapse in the program is eliminated because frankly there will be no lapse. this will be the reform implemented and there will be no risk to the authorities that our national security professionals keep us safe. the reason that is critically important is because there is no plan b. these are authorities that

congress must legislate. again, we talk about a basic functional responsibility of of the united states congress to pass a piece of legislation critically important to ensuring the basic safety and security of the american people is protected and the basic civil liberties of the american people are protected. again, other than the budget of the united states, it is difficult to conceive of a basic central responsibility that the united states congress has. in this case we are gratified after thousands of hours of difficult work, the house of representatives acted within the scope of those responsibilities to pass a common sense reform proposal. the senate unfortunately, for reasons unclear, for reasons no one has been able to effectively explain hasn't yet done the same thing. given the lack of a reasonable

alternative explanation i am hopeful that as an indication after all the posturing is finally concluded that they will move forward on the commonsense reform proposal. >> i want to ask you about the transportation funding. when the president was asked about this at camp david he said he was in discussion with congressional leaders and he wanted ideas about how to find a long-term solution. -- about finding another potential revenue sources. i guess i'm wondering is the open to other ideas and if you can talk a little bit about that. >> roberta, and the president has routinely and consistently indicated a willingness to find bipartisan common ground is the best way to ensure we are making this and our infrastructure. it is critically important

observing the near-term moments. it is also critically important to the long-term prospect of economic growth. we put forth a proposal that we believe makes the most sense which is closing loopholes that only benefit wealthy corporations and using the revenue to invest in the infrastructure. that is a pretty commonsense proposal. their numbers of congress in both parties who have an idea that we are open to considerations of ideas. there have been conversations taking place between senior members of the presidency both here at the white house nsa relevant with democrats and republicans. i don't know much progress to report unfortunately. that is why congress appears poised to pass a short-term

extension. that is no way to run a government. unfortunately it appears to be the situation we face now. what all the congress can do is pass a short-term extension and we are hopeful members of congress will use a short-term extension to negotiate something longer term. if you regularly about the benefit certainty, and economic and if it's a certainty and in this case economic benefits of the infrastructure investments that benefit the job market across the country. >> it doesn't do enough to ensure the metadata is the curved and requires the companies to keep that and say

that for a potential future surveys. so what they are saying is they want to have a temporary extension in the u.s.a. freedom act. i want to ask you directly to pass a short-term extension of weeks or two months for the president sign it so they can go back and address the concern. >> let me take up the substantive objection they raised first. the fact is we know based on the way the program currently operates the telecom companies maintain the data. you know based on the fact you receive a cell phone bill every month that list the time duration and phone number of the calls phone number because you've made over the course of the month to cite one example of the telecom companies are saving this data. they do it already. >> you are confident they will save all the metadata and they will do that for a period of years, which is what is

envisioned. >> at this point there is no indication they won't. but if there were concerns they were going to i feel confident our national security professionals would assess a situation and come back at come back if they thought was necessary to pass legislation that would compel the telecom companies to take action. right now there is no reason to think that is necessary based on their long-standing practice. >> so if it comes to them they can't pass this -- >> the second substantive objection that was molded into the first part of your question which is about a transition period. there are reforms contemplated in the u.s.a. freedom act that would put the government out of the business of this data. it would require transition as an implementation phase that would last for 180 days. the fact is there are d. is an implementation phase. if there are these long-standing

concerns, that raises another question. if there is a long-standing concern for republicans in the senate why are they waiting until the last day to raise it? we've been talking about this a year and a half. >> is politically they can't get 60 votes, while the president sign a short-term extension? >> it is not clear to anyone extension with get 60 votes in the senate. they do not believe a short-term extension passed the house of representatives. the other thing is this. the program lapses on midnight may 31st. especially the last second of may 31st. we know the house of representatives is not scheduled to come back into session until june 1st. even under this strategy some republicans are advocating, it

would almost guarantee a lapse in the program. >> how much risk is there? >> that is something difficult for me to assess. maybe they are national security professionals who could offer the assessment or you. what i would say if they pass the u.s.a. freedom act there is zero risk. when something is important and even a little risk is something we don't need to subject ourselves to. >> one other one on the hillary clinton e-mails. is there any concern in the white house to see cindy blumenthal was advising secretary clinton, the foundation and of course ruled out as someone the administration would have at the state department. he is offering a sense of the intelligence on the ground in the wake of the attack in benghazi. >> no. and there is no indication at least on our part to indicate

that information will somehow prioritize over information collected and distributed by the u.s. government. >> to the white house and president know mr. blumenthal -- >> i don't know the answer to that. jim. >> can i go back to the collection program. i want to figure out what happens on june 1st. the nsa on june 1st were not legally be able to access that data past june 1st. is that how it works? >> for the technical way the program is implemented, i would ask you to contact the nsa. the first is as a mention to john and the way we can ensure there is no lapse in the program, no operational risk to the program is to pass the u.s.a. freedom act. the fact that there's an implementation. the last 180 days. so there would be an opportunity for reforms to be implemented in

a way that would essentially eliminate the risk of any lapse or disruption. the 180 days is not a number picked out of a hat at random. 180 days is the amount of time the intelligence community has requested for the implementation of these reforms. what the president has indicated is that for some unexpected reason it becomes clear that more than 180 days is necessary to successfully implement reforms, the administration with the backing of the national security infrastructure would go to the congress and the additional time. again the way for us to completely eliminate the risk of these critically important national security authorities from lapsing is to pass the u.s.a. freedom act. the other thing and something

the president has strong feelings about the other way to ensure we finally move forward on the critically needed reforms that ensure civil liberties or protect the us to pass the u.s.a. freedom act. so we can do both. i haven't heard a rational satisfactory explanation for why the vast majority of the united states senate, democrats and republicans won't do that. the last thing i can tell you and the nsa can give you more details and this goes to the way the program is implemented. the kinds of programs we talk about are not the program started and stopped at the flip of a switch. it requires time. that is part of what the 180 day implementation. it's about. what the nsa has said publicly is that there is no indication that congress will successfully reauthorize these authorities by

the end of the day today that the nsa will begin taking the steps to online the program. they need to be sure they are in compliance. the authorities by legislation are slated to expire at the end of the month and again that it's not just the flip of a switch. they have to dismantle the program. other reason it is important for the united states senate to vote today so the president can quickly sign. >> earlier today he was reassuring to jewish american community and i suppose a lot of israelis but america has israel's back. a big piece of that is iran and the ran nuclear program. i guess what i am curious about with respect to what is happening in iraq right now and i says it seems you are in a situation where you're trying to reassure israel jewish american that you are going to keep iran

in check over here when it comes to the nuclear program but in iraq it sounds as if the strategy is going to increasingly become reliant somewhat more on the shia backed militias which most experts will say have some iranian influences. can you talk about how that is a difficult position to be in? do you find that to be a difficult position to be and where you will be reliant somewhat when it comes to strategy in iraq and militias that have some iranian backed? >> what is clear -- [inaudible] >> i understand the spirit of your question. the first is the prime minister of iraq is a shia muslim. the largest neighbor of iraq is iran. we would expect that iran and iraq would have a relationship

and we've acknowledged in the ratings have been pretty clear about this and it's understandable. they don't have any interest in seeing isil carry out these terrible heinous acts of violence in a country that is on their doorstep. what is critically important is for iran to respect the sovereignty of their neighbors in iraq and that is why the administration has gone to great lengths to build up and support the central government of iraq led by prime minister abadi. he has committed to governing in a multisector way. what we have said is the united states will not coordinate militarily with the radiance.

as long as it is under the command and control of the iraqi central government. that is the principle we have applied with some evidence of success. there was a lot of concern about isil being dug in and some shia militia in iraq. the united states in the coalition partners came to prime minister abadi and said if you'll mobilize forces under your command and control we will back them with airpower and we have reason to believe they will be more effective on the battlefield. within a day or two the multi-sectarian force was able to drive train firefighters outside. that is a formula for success. each situation is different and the iraqis are working to determine what they can do to build the capacity of the forces they have now pieced ramadi and

leverage the assistance of the united states and the rest of our international coalition to make sure they're well-trained and well-equipped troops there and when they are prepared to try and retake ramadi that they can do so with the full support of the international coalition including coalition military airstrikes. >> that is my other question and then i will let you go. you have been saying all week and the president indicated in the article with the atlantic that ground forces combat troops are not an option when it comes to dealing with isis. just to button is down i'm asking you are you saying under no circus dances will that ever be considered? there is no tipping point where that might be considered. >> it is a hypothetical. let me be as clear about this as i possibly can. the president has clearly ruled out the use of u.s. military

personnel and a ground combat role in iraq. the reason for that is we have an important lesson to learn from the previous invasion of iraq. we know it does not serve the interest of the united states to put our military into a situation like that. so for example we know it is critically important and the national security interest of the united states for the iraqi government and iraqi security forces in people to take responsibility for the security situation in their own country. they can do so with the support of the united states. putting united states military in a situation where they are carrying out efforts on their behalf does work in the short term. we saw in the previous conflict

in iraq the u.s. military forces because of the bravery and professionalism of the u.s. military, that they did have some short-term success in battling extremists in stabilizing the country. but because of the failed leadership of prime minister maliki, that was not a situation that iraqi leaders were able to capitalize on. the last thing i will say and the reason i'm unwilling to definitively rule out your hypothetical is we have said the same thing about syria. the president does not envision and does not plan to consider putting u.s. ground forces in a combat role in syria. however, we just saw last weekend the president did order a mission that involved u.s. personnel being on the ground in a combat role in syria to take out a isil later. for exceptions like that i preserve some wiggle room.

as a matter of policy come the president has been clear we have learned the lessons of the previous iraqi invasion and u.s. military cannot be in a situation where we are bearing the load providing for the security of the iraqi people. we can support them as they try to do that for themselves. cheryl. >> let's go back to the transportation bill. now that it's getting close there is a lot of support for a longer-term case for it. it's the white house any more open now to an increase in the gas tax? >> cheryl we have indicated previously that is not a proposal we have offered. there are other members of congress in both parties that have made a compelling case about the virtues of the strategy. the administration however has put forward a plan we think is better. said that as an indication we will continue to talk with those

members of congress particularly because it is an indication they share our priority and those investments in infrastructure critically important. that is an indication that there is common ground and we take every opportunity to have those discussions and when we do, we will hear them out when it comes to their suggestion about the best way to pay for these programs. we also take advantage of the opportunity to persuade them of the benefits and the proposal we layout as well. john peered >> is that a clever tactic for getting me to call in today? >> yesterday i was covering senator cassidy so i'm celebrating rednosed today for a good cause. >> i was not aware that it's a holiday, be you can explain it to me later. >> it's friday. we've got a lot of stuff to do. two questions. thank you, josh. number one you made a strong case to the importance of the

u.s.a. freedom i peered in the week ahead while congress is out, he called members of the senate himself. >> hopefully that won't be necessary. hopefully members of the senate recognize there's a very easy solution to the problem that will balance our civil liberties protections that they need to protect our country double reflect the bipartisan compromise reached in the house and will reflect the deadline the nsa authority established which is to pass before the end of the day-to-day legislation passed with strong bipartisan support in the house. if they do the president will sign it into law before the end of may 31 and ensure that there is zero risk associated -- zero risk the needed authorities will lapse. >> it appears as though something is needed to get the calls and become involved as he wasn't affordable care act

process. >> the president does believe this is a priority and there are members of the team in regular touch with members of the united states senate on this issue. we are hopeful that those sufferers will bear fruit. this is not about members of the senate. either party frankly deciding to go along with the administration decision. they go along with the recommendations of our senior national security leadership and going along with the bipartisan ground staked out by the democratic and republican leaders of the house of representatives who are dedicated thousands of hours of trying to reach the commonsense compromise. again, it effectively balances the need to protect civil liberties with the need to protect the country. >> my other question is the president over the years has come very close to apologizing

to iran for the 1953 coup against prime minister mosivi as a prerequisite for better relations. he mentioned it in his cairo speech. he mentioned that in his speech last year. is this something the president will do as the dialogue continues with iran to issue a formal apology ever deeper for a joint statement in which iran and the united states both say the stakes are made in 1953 with the seizure of the hostages in 1979. >> john i am not aware of any specific plans for an apology. but i am confident that the comments he cited the president delivered both in cairo and at the united nations were words that were very carefully chosen. so when it comes to the administration and the president's view, those historic event i would refer you to his comments directly.

nothing new. major. >> just to put these together this is in the room are endowed the justice department talking tonight the authorities began to be wound down for surveillance under the existing authorities. that process will continue until may 31st. according to you, the memo starting tonight things get less safe in this country in terms of using those authorities to detect and possibly prevent a terrorist attack. and the blame for that falls squarely. tonight in each and every day after the country is less safe. >> for the operational impact of the beginning of the wind down i would refer you to the nsa. i can't speak to what impact that would have. all i can no speak to the fact that the nsa has indicated that they do not have any clear indication by the end of today

that these authorities will be renewed, they will need to begin taking steps to one when the program to ensure they continue to stay in compliance with the congressional authorization past three years ago. >> i would like to get your reaction to what rand paul sat on the floor. if these authorities go away it is not as if the fisa court goes away and the mechanism by which you obtain a warrant for surveillance goes away. this goes back to the system that existed before this. and he believes, is served, there is more than enough security umbrella provided by that system tool for the nation the comfort and security it needs. why do you disagree? >> i disagree for a couple of reasons. the first is i rely and the president relies on the advice he gave from his national

security team and intelligence professionals responsible for using authorities to keep us safe. and what does lon forstmann and national security professionals tell us is that these authorities can do in a tangible way contribute to their ability to keep us safe. but the president in his stead upon his ensuring a policy and making clear we put in place protections for the privacy of the american people. that exactly contained in the legislation of the u.s.a. freedom mac and it is why we strongly believe the vast majority of democrats and republicans in the united states senate should vote for it and should go for it today. >> fleming asked john's question to you in a slightly different way. of course the house republican leadership is right here, that it conduct a pro forma session under those rules pass a

short-term extension if it so chooses. what i'm asking you is not whether the president would sign that but what appears to be the house republican leadership's vantage point on this, which is not to do that. given the option of a short-term present it, they will not engage in any effort to do that. as you said the house can do that. what i'm asking you as the president support that approach meaning given the choice of not being in the authorities expiring coming back in a pro forma basis for two weeks or two months does the president support that legislative approach? >> you actually set it up very cogently. the fact is we've got people in the united states senate right now playing chicken with us. they are in a situation where they are saying we are going to try to do a two-week extension

or a short-term extension of these critical national security authorities. to play chicken with that is grossly irresponsible. the fact is they have before them a commonsense bipartisan reform legislation that has the strong support of civil libertarians have a strong support of national security leaders and it should have the strong support of the bipartisan majority in united states senate. right now it doesn't because unfortunately we see some members of the senate play games with the civil liberties and national security of the united states and the american people. >> one last question. wednesday the supreme leader said i read would never allow the military side through interviews under any nuclear deal with major powers.

he told us yesterday the president will take a bad deal. and do you swear those two perspectives? and is a bad deal mean it can't do with the supreme leader says and does a good deal mean the supreme leader had to eat his words? >> we have been clear in the context of the political agreement was reached in in the first week in april about how we would shut down every pathway of a nuclear weapon and how we wed the international community and international experts would verify compliance with the agreement and verify their compliance includes the most intrusive set of inspections imposed on the country's nuclear program. that is what will have to be codified in the final deal for the president and the other p5 plus one members to sign on to the agreement.

>> so whatever the stated preferences are he is going to have to accept what he said this week he would not have said. >> well, the only thing the united states and our partners will accepted as a final agreement that reflects the outlines of the political agreement reached the first week in april. in that political agreement, the international community, are p5 plus one partners and the iranians were clear that they would be imposed on iran's nuclear program the most intrusive set of inspections that were imposed on anybody's nuclear program. and the successful implementation of vat inspections program will be required before the president signs onto the agreement. it will also be required before the iranians get the kind of

sanctions released that they are desperate to get their hands on. that is the standard the president and the partners will hold the iranians. bob. >> -- [inaudible] why are they playing chicken? why is there a disconnect between what the overwhelming support of the u.s.a. freedom mac in the house bipartisan basis in a sense, but republicans as well why do you think that is? >> i have no idea. i don't mean to take it lightly. i can try. i guess this is what i would say. if you can get a good answer there is a lot of people who would be interested to hear it. as i mentioned to john, we haven't heard a cogent reasonable explanation for why we would see some members of the

senate resort to these kinds of tactics, particularly when there is a commonsense bipartisan proposal already out there and particularly when we talk about something that is so critical to the national security of the united dates and particularly when we are talking about the basic civil liberties and privacy of 300 million american citizens. again, it is difficult to explain. there is some irrational it the nation or why you would so cavalierly handle or not handle is the case may be such a basic responsibility of the united states congress. [inaudible] >> again, i will say this. i don't think the american people appreciate. i don't know that there is a constituency out there for congress to not protect the civil liberties of the american people for congress not to take the necessary steps to protect our national security.

you know i've not in the past been a lot in to suggest that there might be a political motive of one kind of another. but in this case, if there is i don't know what it is. there is no rational explanation. even if there were an explanation with which i strenuously disagree, there is no explanation for why we see members of congress who are charged with protecting the united states of america be on the brink of failing to fulfill the basic responsibility. >> you said about the u.s.a. freedom mac that the president -- rather there were senior members of his team obviously out there pushing. i'm just wondering for now until the end of the day because you said it has to be done today what can you tell us about the strategy of the white house

president senior staff members to push this and get it done. >> well to be blunt there are a number of conversations between senior administration officials about a variety of priorities that are currently sitting in the senate today. this is consistent with the pattern with a lot of critically important issues get piled up right before a recess. that is no different this year in advance of the memorial day recess. i would anticipate over the course of the remainder of today and if necessary through the weekend that senior members of the administration to be in touch with members of congress about a variety of these issues and the president will be in town this weekend and available for phone calls if necessary. >> you also said that the state department said about the hillary clinton e-mails that they don't change the essential facts or understanding of the events before, during or after

the attacks and some republicans are saying well, of course they don't. i wonder your response to critics who say, well, this is the process that has not been fully transparent. >> i think the fact we're talking about these e-mails is an indication of how transparent the state department has been. the state has to provide the responsibilities to the congress month ago. today they are disclosing them to the public. they are taking the extraordinary step consistent with the presidency of transparency. also at the college secretary clinton and all her e-mail should be made public after they have gone through this foia review process and the state department the state department as part of work done to fill work done to fill in those expectations. [inaudible] >> i have no reason to not be confident in the vetting process. i would also acknowledge that i am not deeply involved in the

vetting process. that is the responsibility of the agency and there are professionals that i think by virtue of the fact they are releasing several hundred pages today that they take the responsibility seriously. >> and they talked about this yesterday on the president's twitter account and some of the unfortunate things that have been written by folks online. i wonder if the president has made any comments on that. >> i've not spoken to them about it. i would feel comfortable in saying they are more than unfortunate. some of them are offensive and disgusting. they are also not unique to the president's twitter feed. we see similar things directed at the white house twitter feed. similar things directed at my twitter feed. i suspect all of you have similar things directed at your twitter feed as well. this is something we all deal with and again, we don't have to like it but it is part of an open society and it is in the

mind of the administration and the mind of the president worth it. this is a valuable tool to engage the american public in a legitimate debate and dialogue about priorities they care about. that is why we are doing it. we are doing it in spite of some of the disgusting things people do to the president's twitter feed. >> on a much lighter note is he aware of the record he set in acquiring twitter followers and has he said anything about it? >> he is aware of it. i will say there's a decent chance that might've come out that yesterday's cabinet meeting. >> you know anything about that exchange? >> not more than they are to have. the president -- [inaudible] i'm not sure what gift would be appropriate in that setting. i am not [inaudible] >> now, we did not. >> a couple questions about the

islamic state. in an interview with jeffrey paul byrd he said the president to fight against the islamic state with a multiyear campaign. i wonder how that squares with some of the comment early on what he describes as limited airstrikes. >> the president -- this is consistent with the way the president has talked about the threat from isil since it emerged so prominently in their advance across iraq last summer. the president was very candid about the fact that this is a problem whose solution will require a long-term commitment. this will not be a short-term proposition was the phrase the president used. the description of limited airstrikes i believe was a reference to early on prior to prime minister abadi taking office, the president's desire

to be supportive of a genuinely inclusive government was not the kind of leadership prime minister maliki had displayed. after prime minister abadi took office on the wings of a commitment to govern the country and an inclusive fashion to unite the country to face the threat opposed by isil, and that the administration and the president -- >> we are going to leave the briefing and take you live to the floor of the senate and as members gavel back in giving the president to negotiate trade agreements that would require only an up or down vote in congress.

mr. whitehouse: mr. president may i suggest the absence of a quorum. i will withhold. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president i've been having a lot of people ask me where we are on the u.s.a. freedom act and we actually have a very interesting easy choice. you can either pass the bipartisan bill that the house of representatives passed with a majority of republicans a majority of democrats voting for

it or we can let the whole patriot act expire at the end of this month. some may prefer that. i think there's a number of improvements that the house made which would protect our freedoms and protect our security, and that's what we ought to have. people have talked about short-term steptions. -- short-term extensions. well, you could have a two-day extension or a 5,000-year extension. you'd be extending something that doesn't exist. the fact of the matter is, the house gave us their bill in plenty of time to act upon it, to amend it if we wanted to, send it back, do a conference. but now they've gone on recess. if we don't vote for their bill, we can -- we'll end up at the end of the month with nothing. there will be nothing to extend. we can feel good about passing an extension but you can't extend something that is dead.

and i worked for more than two years with members of congress from both parties -- from both parties and in both chambers -- to develop the u.s.a. freedom act of 2015. it's a commonsense balanced reform bill that protects america's privacy ensures our national security. now, the bill doesn't go nearly as far as the bill i first introduced in october 2013 with congressman sensenbrenner. it doesn't go as far as the u.s.a. freedom act which was filibustered last november by then republican leader mcconnell and others. now, the incoming -- at that time incoming majority leader said he wanted to wait and see how it would be with a republican majority, was able to rally his members to delay

reform. but we shouldn't delay it any further. the americans deserve to have their privacy restored their national security protected. there should be no more excuse. let's look at what we have. in the bill that senator lee and i have supported the u.s.a. freedom act of 2015, not just our support it has the administration's support it has the support of the director of national intelligence, of the attorney general and the f.b.i. director a supermajority of the house of representatives the technology industry, privacy and civil liberty groups, libraries the n.r.a. -- i mean, when are you ever going to find all these groups coming together? well they come together because they know it is a good bill. support for our bill continues to grow. just yesterday national security

experts at the conservative heritage foundation concluded the u.s.a. freedom act strikes a balance between maintaining our national security and protecting civil liberties. i think it's a reasonable and responsible bill. you got the civil liberties groups and the n.r.a. together, maybe you have something. the heritage foundation and privacy groups ... mr. president, i've been here 41 years, it's -- i've seen very, very few pieces of legislation where these groups come together. but even if they didn't -- and they did because it's a responsible and reasonable bill -- but even if they hadn't, even if they hadn't come together, it's the only option left for any senator who wants to avoid a

sunset of the surveillance authorities that expire at midnight on may 31. we won't be in session. the other body won't be in session. the one thing that will happen is our current authorities will sunset they'll go away. wow, can't you hear the cheers from some of our enemies? last year, with the current senate majority leader led the filibuster of the u.s.a. freedom act, we were told the senate needed more time to consider the issue and the new senate would tank the matter under new leadership. all right we've known these sunsets were coming for years. that's why i brought the bill up last year. there's been nothing done on this urgent matter this year. no public hearings, no committee markups. unlike all the public hearings and committee markups we had

last year. but, in contrast, the house leadership has acted responsibly and decisively. they moved the u.s.a. freedom act of 2015 through the judiciary committee. they had markups and hearings and they passed this bipartisan bill overwhelmingly. we had significant debate on this issue this week. i've heard senators across the political spectrum that have spoke at length on the senate floor about their views. most of these senators have urged us to reform the government's bulk collection program, which is of course the same as the way the vast majority of americans feel, but there have also been voices your your voices -- voices urging more surveillance. we have heard demands for data retention mandated in private

telecom companies. i disagree with those senators that voice that perspective but they have at least been heard. unfortunately, the clocks have been run out. the house worked very hard and they completed their work and they left. they're not coming back until after the surveillance authorities are set to expire, and the house leadership has made clear they will not pass an extension, even if they were in and we passed the extension they made it very clear the republican and democratic leadership that they will not take it up. so here's the decision. it is a very, very simple one. we can let the three provisions at issue expire -- some may like that. frankly, i don't. or we can pass a bipartisan and bicameral u.s.a. freedom act of 2015. now, we all know that the n.s.a. has for years been using section

215 of the patriot act to sweep up phone records of innocent americans without any connection to terrorism. i'm sure there are innocent americans who may be in the chambers or are hearing what we're saying. they've had their phone records swept up. well, i don't think anybody can feel very comfortable about that. we also know that the n.s.a. used a similar legal theory for years to collect massive amounts of metadata related to billions of e-mails sent to and from innocent americans. the parents sending to a child how is my granddaughter's cold a long? or how did my grandson do in school? or somebody writing to a friend back and forth. well, the american people oppose

this indiscriminate dragnet collection of their records. not only that, the courts do, too. they found it to be unlawful. and in the house of representativessening listened to the -- and the hart listened to the american people, they voted overwhelmingly to end this program through the u.s.a. freedom act and assumed in due course the senate would do what the courts have said, what the house did what the vast majority of americans have said. last november i warned that we would not have much time in the new congress. the american people are demanding action. in fact, when this was filibustered last year people should go back and see the number of letters and e-mails that came pouring into the capitol saying, we want this passed. yet here we are. congress racing against the clock to act before the sunsets take effect next weekend.

well, this is a manufactured crisis. i think there are some that hope that enough senators would be scared by the prospect of these authorities expiring so they'll blindly vote in favor of a clean extension even though that goes nowhere. we've all seen this movie before. we know that opponents of the u.s.a. freedom act simply want to delay again. well, i don't frighten, because many merntion, americans certainly my constituents are wondering what have the opponents of the u.s.a. freedom act been doing for the last six months. the rapidly approaching sunset has been on the book for years. the original sunset provisions were written by republican leader dick armey and myself. i.t. not as though this deadline suddenly snuck up on the leadership of the chairman of the intelligence committee who's

just now considering alternative proposals. remember we're just a few days away from the expiration date. but despite this urgency and the extensive debate we've been having the only bill that's been filed by the opponents of the u.s.a. freedom act is a two-month rubber stamp of the patriot act provisions, a bill the senate sponsors know cannot pass the house even if they were in session and because they're not if we were to pass it here, it becomes a nothing burger because there will be no law to extend. i read in the press there may be an alternative proposal in the works. it may include a provision to keep the bulk collection program if place for more than two years. well even if you could legally pass that, it's entirely unnecessary. just this week, the n.s.a. director stated in a letter to leaders mcconnell and reid

that the n.s.a. only needs 180 days to transition to the new targeted program established by the u.s.a. freedom act which gives them the 180 days, not two years. the 180-day transition has been part of the u.s.a. freedom act for more than a year. all the negotiations about the bill neither the n.s.a. or the intelligence community ever raised a concern about this provision. in fact, we have on the record that they support it. i'd ask consent that a copy of the may 20 letter from admiral rogers be entered as part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: we all know last-ditch attempt at further delay is just too late. so we have two options: pass the u.s.a. freedom act or let the provisions expire. a growing majority of the

senate a straight up-or-down vote supports the u.s.a. freedom act. if we pass it today the president can sign it today or tomorrow. also the intelligence community says is this law going to be here? is the law gone? they can move forward with the certainty to protect the american people. senator lee and i along with a bipartisan group of senators ranging from senator. mr. durbin: to senator heller -- from senator durbin to senator heller to senator schumer goes across the political spectrum. mr. leahy: we're moving for a responsible path forward. we've worked for two years on this bill to end the n.s.a. bulk collection of americans' phone records. republicans and democrats have worked together for two years to end the n.s.a.'s bulk collection of americans' phone records

something that every one of us at a town meeting, i don't care what state you're in, if you ask americans do you want a bulk collection of all your phone records, you know what the answer would be: of course not. clocks run out but there is a responsible choice before us. let's pass the u.s.a. freedom act today. then we have the improvements, we keep america secure and we don't have all our authorities expire. mr. president, i see other senators on the floor and i will yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana hell hell -- mr. tester: i rise today to honor a great montana journalist. i got to know chuck johnson 16 years ago when i was running for the state senate. his distinguished career started

long before that. while attending the university of montana journalism school mr. johnson was accepted to be creacial intern here -- to be a congressional intern here in washington d.c. then in 1972, chuck johnson was assigned to cover montana's constitutional convention for the associated press. little did he know at that time that this assignment would launch his professional career covering montana politics. and little did he know that he would be writing history as he watched montana draft one of the most progressive state constitutions in the country. in his long career, chuck johnson covered nine governors nine u.s. senators, ten congressmen and more legislative sessions than i can count including the years that i had the honor of serving the great state of montana in helena. he pushed for increased media

access and for a reporter's right to be in the room. thanks to chuck montana now has a requirement that political caucuses are open to the press. mr. johnson and his colleague mike dennison worked hand in hand for years and wrote powerful is stories that had sweeping enterprise across our great state. when the news broke yesterday that lee enterprises would be closing its state bureau and mr. johnson is requiring it started buzzing. as chuck leaves political journalism he leaves a giant hole that will be difficult if not impossible, to fill. in the day of a 24-hour news cycle and the demand for immediate information the people of montana still count on

chuck johnson to present the facts. even though he started writing his stories on a type writer, he has adapted with the times learning how to tweet. known as the dean of the capitol press corps mr. johnson would take young reporters under his wing teaching them how to understand the governmental process and sharing his vast knowledge of montana politics. from his reporting on taxes and budgets, he has a way of making it easy to make sense to the average reader. but whereas reporting really -- where his reporting stands out is his ability to track and understand campaign finance. he has been known to plow through election reports late on a friday night when all the other reporters have called it quits and gone to bed. digging for a story holding elected leaders accountable and reporting the facts. it's his integrity his commitment to the truth and fair reporting that has earned the

respect of politicians and readers alike from both sides of the aisle. and it is in that spirit that i'd like my colleague senator daines to join me. senator in. mr. daines: well, thank you. and i want to thank the senior senator from the state of montana, jon tester. i rise to recognize the career and service of chuck johnson a long-term montanan, a montana reporter who will be entering into a well-deserved retirement at the end of next week. chuck's career covering montana politics began more than 40 years ago when he was asked to cover the montana constitutional convention for the associated press. and since then he's covered nearly two dozen sessions of the montana state legislature countless political conventions. i remember seeing chuck late at night at conventions giving up a lot of his personal time for the sake of covering these stories across our state. he's covered hundreds of elected officials and has been a steady

presence on montana's campaign trail. over the past two decades chuck led political reporting for lead newspapers the past ten years spent working alongside his fellow lee state colleague mike dennison. if it has to do with montana politics chuck has probably covered it. and i'm told chuck has the best political campaign button collection in all of montana. chuck's life has been spent in montana. he grew up in helena. he went on to earn his degree in journalism at the university of montana. i can speak as a montana state bobcat i know chuck is a testament to the quality produced by montana's school of journalism. it goes without saying as a bobcat i don't always see eye to eye with chuck on important issues like who to cheer for during the brawl of the wilds and which colors to cheer for. but i know chuck took a fair amount of joy in receiving this

bobcat receive a montana grizzly shirt after the disappointing cats lost in the 2013 game. setting aside our personal allegiances it's been a great privilege and tremendous honor to work with chuck in my years representing montana and being involved in montana politics. with chuck's retirement and the closing of the lee state bureau, montana is saying farewell to not only a talented and dedicated reporter but also a historian of our state and a mentor to countless young reporters looking to make that you are own mark in montana's news media. i want to thank chuck personally for his years of service to montana, his lifelong commitment to making our state's government open and more accessible to all montanans. he has made a lasting mark on the state of montana. his depth of knowledge his life time of experience will be difficult if not impossible to replace. and his byline on newspaper stories across montana will be greatly missed.

well chuck congratulations on your retirement. we appreciate all that you have done and we wish you the very best. i'd like to yield back to the senior senator from montana senator tester. mr. tester: thank you senator daines. it is a pleasure to share the senate floor with you this afternoon. as chuck johnson retires and puts away his pen and his notebook, i want to say thank you to chuck. you know, in this body, we often think that we're irreplaceable when we're not. but i'll say this about chuck johnson: it will be a long time before montana sees someone as good as chuck and the reporting corps. so as a body, we honor chuck johnson's contributions to montana, to our country and to our democracy. good luck, chuck. with that, i would yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. a senator: i move we suspend the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blunt: mr. president, i want to talk today about one of the things we need to do before we leave here: the extension of the highway bill. nobody is satisfied with a

short-term extension of the highway bill, and i'd be among the group that would be least satisfied with that. but as we look at what's happened so far this year, we've moved in a number of areas in a positive way and don't have time while we're here to do what we need to do to have a truly long-term highway bill. the last two bills under the two previous congresses, the two previous senates very unhelpful and unsatisfying in many ways. a six-month extension of the highway bill, you can't build roads and bridges six months at a time. not only can you not do the work six months at a time, you can't get the kind of competitive bidding prices and planning you need to do this work in the right way. and before that only a two-year bill. i will be very disappointed if we can't meet both of those standards. the reason will be to do the two-month bill today will be,

one, we have enough money left because of winter conditions we can do that two months of further construction with the money that's now available. and we don't do anything to slow down construction here at the best building time of the year. but, mr. president, we need to work really hard in the next two months -- and we should be working right now and i know we are working right now -- to come up with that long-term solution that lets us look at the transportation needs of the country in a way that allows us to compete. so many great things are out there in the next few decades for our country but they all involve a transportation system that works. i think the country's clearly ready to make things again. i was so pleased in the last congress that we were able to add the advanced manufacturing bill to the arsenal of things we have. senator brown and i worked on that together. we got that bill passed. the ars that will we have -- the arsenal we have to be in the

process to be able to make things again. the right energy policy clearly gets us there where we make things again. certainly what's going to happen in agriculture in manufacturing in health care technology, all great opportunities of great potential but we have to have a transportation system that works. we are the best located country in the world to deal in the commerce of the world. we're the best located country in the world to connect with the marketplace of the world but we have to have a transportation system that allows us to do that. and so i hope we're working hard and believe we are to find what we need to do to fill that gap between what the current gas tax creates. and i don't think that at the federal level there's any likelihood of increasing that tax in the next few years. but looking at what that tax creates and then what -- what funding source is there out there that helps us fill that

gap between gas tax and reasonable add expirations for our transportation -- add -- aspirations for our transportation that the american people expect. there may be questions about how the federal government or state government or how this works in terms of government. we know this is something we can't do for ourselves. and since the very earliest days of the congress what the federal government could and should do regarding interstate commerce and transportation and the constitution itself talks about building postal roads it talks about interstate commerce. so hopefully mr. president we take this vote today or tomorrow or whenever we take this vote, to be sure we continue the construction already underway but don't stop for a minute in working on this process until we get a highway and bridge and construction bill for transportation that allows us to move forward and to move forward

for a significant future of what we need to do. we are going to lose the advantages we have if we don't maintain and improve the transportation network that we have. and so, mr. president i look forward to seeing that happen and encourage my colleagues to vote for that two-month extension but don't give a moment's relaxation seeking the multiyear highway bill, the multiyear transportation bill that the country really needs. and also, mr. president while i'm here, i want to talk about one other thing before we -- we take this work period for memorial day. this is an important time to honor those who have served, those who have sacrificed people who have given their all for the country or even those who have served and were able to live a full life after service. we honor them on memorial day as

well. but what we really -- as i'm thinking about memorial day this year, i'm continuing to be frustrated with how we treat our veterans. the veterans administration system is not what it should be. it continues to seem to me that the veterans administration wants to focus on what's good for the veterans administration instead of what's good for veterans. and i'm tired of it. and i think many people in the country are tired of it, and we need to do something about it:we got a report in our state this -- something about it. we got a report in our state this week about the st. louis -- one of the st. louis facilities, the john cochran hospital. now, this hospital, mr. president, has had seven acting directors in two years. it's a hospital with problems. it's a hospital that's not serving veterans the way it should and it's had seven acting directors in two years. i can't contact the second -- the same director twice before they're gone and then the new director's trying to figure out what the problems are.

and it seems to me before they can figure what the problems are, there's another new acting director. we just had a inspector general report on that hospital and the inspector general report found 45 areas that needed improvement and in a veterans administration hospital. 45 areas. and these are things like dirty patient care areas and expired medication and inadequate staff training. these are -- this -- we're not talking about not having the most expensive or the best or the most up-to-date equipment. we're talking about getting the medicine off the shelf that's retired. or having patient care areas that are clean. and certainly like everywhere else at this facility, just simply getting patients scheduled to come in have been a problem. we -- the -- the director of the veterans administration,

mr. mcdonald, needs the change the v.a., not manage the v.a. now, he came to this job with well heralded management experiences but this is not just a management job. this is a change job and he needs to make the changes. there's no excuse for a two-year vacancy in a troubled facility. no excuse that they're looking for every way they cannot to provide more choices for veterans. it's clear that the congress wants to have more choices. senator moran from kansas has a bill that i'm proud to cosponsor that emphasizes one more time, just in case we weren't clear enough last year that we want veterans to have choices. we want veterans to have choices. there is no reason for veterans to drive by a facility that could do a better job than a veterans' facility only to stand in line at a veterans' facility.

there are a few things that the v.a. system should be better at than anybody else. they should be better at post post-traumatic stress, dealing with that. they should be better at prosthetics, the replacement of arms and legs. this is something that -- since before the civil war at least the veterans administration has always been pretty good at because they had a lot of -- of reasons, tragic reasons, to be good at this particular thing. but there's no -- no reason to believe that the veterans administration hospitals necessarily the best place to get your heart extent put in. there's no reason to believe that the veterans administration is necessarily the best place available to you to have your cancer treatment. there's no reason to believe that the veterans administration is the best place to -- to go to have your kidney surgery. and weapon ought to let veterans go to the best place. we ought to let veterans have more choices. and particularly young veterans. last year i sponsored an act

called "excellence in mental health," where -- by the way we're launching that program right now looking for the first eight states at properly qualified facilities, one that will treat mental health just like all physical health. but excellent in mental health, certainly the mental health community came forward and the law enforcement community came forward. but veterans' group after veterans' group and particularly young veterans said, we want to have more choices. we want to be able to go to places where we can take care of our health care problem in a way that works with our family, in a way that works with our work. these are important choices. the congress has spoken but apparently not quite loud enough. the veterans want to say that, well, any facility within 45 -- if you're not within -- if you're within 45 miles of any facility, whether it provides the service you need or not the most technical reading of the

law would suggest that it really doesn't matter if you need a heart transplant, if you're within 45 miles of a facility where you can get your blood pressure checked then you don't qualify for the program that gives you more choice. that's a ridiculous interpretation of the law. we'll do our best to try to make the law clearer. but i think the veterans' administration could make it clear if they wanted to. if they are afraid to compete we should is wonder why they're afraid to compete and we will look at the problems at the cochran facility and others. we understand -- we should understand why they're afraid to compete. this is not the way veterans should treated. this is not the way we should be honoring our veterans. it's not the way we should be going home on memorial day. and, mr. president i hope we commit ourselves to do a better job on this topic and more importantly to force the veterans administration to do the job it's supposed to do.

and i would yield back. suggest the absence of a -- i think my friend from vermont is coming to the floor. [no audio] mr. sanders: mr. president? every. the presiding officer: mr. sanders: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: mr. president atly so point soon, -- at some point soon i assume the senate is going to adjourn for the memorial week break and i just want to say a few words on the important issues that we are now confronting. i suspect later today there will be a vote on the t.p.p.

i suspect that those who are for the t.p.p. have the votes the 60 votes necessary to pass it. i know there are a number of amendments that are going to be offered and i will support the strongest of those amendments. but the bottom line is, in my view that the t.p.p. is a continuation of failed trade policy which has resulted in the loss of millions of decent paying jobs in this country which has resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of manufacturing facilities as corporations have shut down in america and moved to china to mexico, and to other low-wage countries. in my view, it is wrong to ask american workers to compete against people in vietnam where the manipulate -- where the minimum wage is 56 cents an hour.

to compete against people in malaysia, where in some cases you literally have indentured servitude, people who have lost their ability to leave the country and are working for incredibly low wages in horrendous working conditions. that is not what a trade policy should be. so i would hope that our colleagues in the house have more resolve than we have had here in the senate and i hope that they stand up and say enough is enough. current trade policies have failed. we need trade policies that work for the average american and not just for the multinational corporations. mr. president, i also want to say a word on another issue that i know is of deep concern in the state of vermont and i'm quite confident is of concern in 49 other states as well and that is

that right now in a competitive global economy, we have hundreds of thousands of bright young people who want to go to college, who want to get a higher he education but today are unable -- a higher education but today are unable to afford that higher education. so here we are desperately needing to have the best he had had -- best educated work force in the world so that we can compete effectively and what we are saying to our bright young people "sorry, you are not going to be able to get the education that you need in order to get the high-quality jobs that are available in this country." and what we are saying to hundreds of thousands of those young people "no you're not going to be doctors you're not going to be nurses, you're not going to be scientists, you're not going to become teachers

you are not going to be able to take -- become employees in high-tech companies because you just don't have the education." frankly, i think that that is absolutely absurd not only for the dreams of low- and moderate-income young people who want to make it into the middle class but it is absurd if we are talking about the future of this country having a strong economy. 30 years ago, the united states led the world in terms of the percentage of our young people who had a college degree. today we are in 12th place. we are in 12th place. and we are competing against countries all over the world who understand the importance of their young people getting the education that is needed in this day and age. mr. president, we are also

facing a related problem in that we have millions of people, many of whom are no longer young, who are dealing with incredibly oppressive and large student debt. the average graduate now of a four-year college is approximately $29,000 in debt, that's the average. so there are many more who are graduating $40,000 or $50,000 in debt. if you go to graduate school, that number goes much higher. i recall speaking some months ago to a young woman in burlington vermont whose crime was she went to medical school and is now practicing primary health care among low-income people which is exactly what we need to see happening in this country. and yet she is saddled with a $300 -- $300,000 debt. i talked to dentist whos who are

also practicing in community health centers we have a major dental crisis in this country and they are saddled with a $2 million debt -- $250,000 debt. at a time when you can go out and get an auto loan for 1% or 2% millions of our young and middle aged people are paying interest rates on their student debt of 5%, 6%, 7%, even higher than that. how does it happen you can go out and get an auto loan for 1% or 2%, how can you refinance your home mortgage to take advantage of low interest rates and yet you are stuck with a 5% 6%, 7% interest rate on your student loan. makes no sense to me at all.

the other part of that mr. president, is that over a ten-year period the federal government now makes over $80 billion in profits from student loans. now, frankly i'd rather see the federal government make that money than the private banks but, in fact, the federal government should not be profiting off of the loans that were needed by low- and moderate-income students and their families. that is not a way to make money. so what i have done mr. president, is introduce legislation called the college for all legislation and it's a very simple piece of legislation. what it says is that number one, we are going to make in this country tuition free college for all public

colleges and public universities in america, tuition free. and we're going to do that by establishing a matching grant program of 2-1 from the federal government one dollar for the state. and when we do that, it will mean that every qualified young person in this country who wants to get a higher education will be able to go to their state colleges their state university and do it tuition free. now, is that an expensive proposition? it is an expensive proposition. but i think long term by having a well educated society by allowing young people today who cannot afford to go to college get that education from an economic point of view we will gain significantly by this legislation. and this legislation is also paid for by a fair and progressive way it says to the people on wall street who have

made huge, huge sums of money by speculating and a whole lot of arcane and dangerous financial tools that we are going to establish in this country a tax on stock transfer transfer stock fee of .5%. and that will raise more than enough money to provide a tuition-free education in our public colleges and universities. so, mr. president, this is an issue that i am going to pursue. i think it is important if we want to deal with income inequality if we want to make sure that everybody in this country gets the education that they need regardless of the income of their families. and there's another issue that i want to very briefly touch on as well today mr. president. that deals with the whole issue of the u.s.a. patriot act and

fisa and civil liberties in this country. let me just make a few basic points. there is nobody in the senate, there is nobody in the house who does not understand that there are terrorist groups out there who want to attack the united states of america and our allies who want to do us harm. and there's nobody in the senate or the house or i think in the united states of america who does not believe as a nation we have got to do everything that we can to protect the people of our country from terrorist attacks. there is no debate on that. but what the debate is about is how do we protect the american people without undermining the constitution of the united states of america or undermining the privacy rights of the

american people. mr. president, i think everybody does understand and should understand that modern technology in all of its tropical storms from the iphones to a dozen or a hundred different ways, that technology has greatly greatly outstripped public policy in terms of protecting privacy rights. by and large the privacy rights that we have on the books now were written years and years before the development of the technologies that we see right now. and it is absolutely imperative that as a nation we begin a serious conversation which includes some of the most knowledgeable people in this country, people who know about

what technology can do today what it can do tomorrow, people who are concerned about civil liberties and privacy rights, our law enforcement officials our national security people. and members of the united states congress. and what that discussion should be about is pretty simple -- how do we protect our country against terrorism at the same time as we protect our privacy rights and our constitutional freedoms. mr. president, as we consider whether or not to reauthorize parts of the patriot act we must take stock of where we are today. it is no secret that n.s.a. collects vast sums of information and at one point or another has collected information on virtually every person in this country who uses

a telephone. that is no great secret. since june -- since june, 2013 we have learned that the n.s.a. collects phone call megadata including the numbers of both parties location time and duration. text messages, email chat, and internet browsing history. smart phone app data including google maps which can pinpoint a person's location to within a few yards. maps of people's social networks bank and credit card transactions. and this, mr. president is just the tip of the iceberg. there is undoubtedly much more being done that we simply don't know anything about. further, local governments and other agencies are also

collecting information about the movements and the habits of law-abiding americans. when you drive down the street, there are cameras that can take pictures of your license plate there are cameras on street corners, cameras in private buildings, the government knows where you are traveling and how long you are gone. let's be clear. while today we are focusing appropriately on the role of the federal government in issues of civil liberties we must also understand that it is not just the government that is collecting information on law-abiding americans. in fact, the private sector's collection of information is just as intrusive and equally dangerous. mr. president, private

companies, private corporations know a whole lot about what we do. our every move can be tracked by a smart phone almost two-thirds of the american people, by the way have smart phones. mr. president, private companies can know what we read what we are emailing about, what weeks visit -- web sites we visit. they know when you have purchased a ticket and know where that trip is taking you. they know whether you're going on a plane or a train or a bus or wherever. when we go to a grocery store your discount card gets scanned and the grocery store knows exactly what you are eating. same thing at the farmers a.

they know what kind -- pharmacy. they know what kind of medicine you are buying enabling people to make judgments about your health. they know when you are pregnant based on your purchases. in the name of fitness people are wearing watches and fitbitz that record your heart rate and exercise patterns and how much you sleep. in the wrong information -- in the wrong hands this information could prevent people from getting health insurance through their jobs and even prevent them from getting hired in the first place. in other words enormous, enormous undreamed-of amounts of information are out there and in the wrong hands they could be a real danger to our country and to the lives of millions of innocent people. mr. president, this is what the attack on privacy looks like. someone can access your phone

calls, they can access your credit card records, they can comb through your purchases they can analyze your spending habits, they can access your emails and your contacts, they can track your movements pretty much anything and everything that we do these days can be tracked and recorded. i hear many of my colleagues coming to the floor of the senate and they talk about america being a free country. well if somebody knows everything you are doing maybe it is time to recognize that we are not quite so free as we think we are. and i know that the argument that i'm raising people will say, well, trust trust these large corporations, trust the government. they're honest people and by and large, many of them are. i'm not suggesting otherwise. but in terms of government policy let us not forget that

45 years ago we had a president of the united states named richard nixon and what richard nixon believed is that anything the president of the united states does by definition is legal. you can break into your opponent's political headquarters, not a problem. he's the president. you can spy on people. not a problem he's the president. so i would ask my colleagues and the american people -- and i do not suggest this for one second that this is true of the obama administration but i do ask the american people to think what happens in the future if you have a president who really does believe that he or she is the law. that he or she can or should have access to the kinds of information that is out there. think about the incredible power that administration has the potential for blackmail the political advantages that that administration has.

people say well, it's a pretty crazy idea, never going to happen. well a lot of things have happened that we never thought could happen. so mr. president it seems to me that now is the time for us as a nation for us as elected officials, to have a very, very important conversation about how we balance our need, of which there is no debate, to protect the american people against terrorist attacks while at the same time we respect the privacy rights and the constitutional rights of our people and how we maintain america as a free and open society. i got involved in this issue a number of years ago when i voted against the u.s.a. patriot act and i remember some librarians

in the state of vermont came to me and they said, you know, as a result of section 215 of the u.s.a. patriot act, law enforcement officials the f.b.i. can come to a librarian and demand that that librarian provide information about the books that people are borrowing from a library. and, of course, section 215 goes a lot further than that. mr. president, do we want to be a nation in which we are looking over our shoulders and worrying about the books that we are reading because somebody will say, oh, you're reading a book about osama bin laden; clearly you must be a terrorist. is that really the kind of fear that we want to see established in this country? so i say to my colleagues, it is great to come to the floor and talk about freedom but what

freedom is about ultimately is the right of people to do what they want to do in a law-abiding way, without harming other people. that's called freedom. and in my view, people have a right to make a telephone call today without that information being collected by the government. people have a right to go to the internet, to send an e-mail with the absolute assurance as law-abiding citizens, that their visits to a web site or the e-mails they sent will be -- will not be tracked by the gov the. people have a right to go to a grocery store and purchase what you buy in a grocery store without knowing that somebody knows what you're buying. mr. president, i intend to shortly introduce legislation which will call for a comprehensive review of data collection by public and private

entities and the impact that that data is having on the american people. i don't know if this is a progressive piece of legislation or a conservative piece of legislation. but i would hope that the -- [no audio] -- would have broad support from people across the political spectrum from people who actually do believe in a free society that our young people should not be worried about the kind of books they read or the web sites that they visit. mr. president, we must bring together leaders in the technology world people who not only know what technology today is doing in invading our privacy rights but what the future holds. because i am quite certain that every single day this technology is growing more and more sophisticated and more and more intrusive. and sitting down with people who are experts on technology have,

we have -- we have got to have civil libertarians, people who understand what the first amendment ais what the fourth amendment -- amendment is, what the fourth amendment is, what the bill of rights is about what the constitution is about. and of course involved in that discussion must be law enforcement and our security experts. and the goal of all of this must be to create legislation which does everything that we can to protect the safety of the american people but also protects our privacy rights and the our constitutional rightsment -- rights. so mr. president with that, i look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on that legislation. and with that, i would yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: mr. president, i don't know if we're in a quorum call or not but if so, i ask unanimous consent that it be dispensed with. the presiding officer: the senate is not in a quorum call. mr. portman: thank you mr. president. i've been on the floor a number of times this week talking about the importance of trade and talking about the need for us to expand more exports around the world. the united states has not been in a position for seven years to do that and that's why trade promotion authority is incredibly important to our

workers, our farmers the people we represent. by doing so, we give people a shot at actually increasing their salaries their families' income because trade jobs tend to pay better, have better benefits. in my home state of ohio, 60% of our soybean crop is expored. we want to be sure those -- crop is exported. we want to be sure those are exported. 50% of our factory jobs are now trade jobs. so these exports are really important. unfortunately whatever happened over the last seven years is as we try to sell our products, our services to the 95% of the world outside of our borders it's getting harder because other countries are concluding trade agreements with each other. so during this time when the u.s. has been sitting on the sidelines, other countries have negotiated trade agreements. this means lowering trade barriers, taking market share from us we would otherwise have. this is an important issue. if you're for jobs, you should

be for exports. you should be for the united states government helping our workers, helping us to be able to knock down these barriers. other countries tend to have higher tariffs, tend to have higher nontariff barriers. this is part of what we should be about this body and i'm glad we're taking this up. this administration now supports this that's good. however, as we do that we also have to be darned sure that the playing field is more level. what do i mean by that? well, we know again that other countries have higher tariffs than we do on average but they do other things that make it harder for our workers and our farmers to compete. one is they subsidize their products. we know this because we have taken a number of these countries to court, meaning the world trade organization about this very topic and here in the united states we have the ability if a company is selling into our country with a subsidized product we have the ability to seek relief for that and we should, it's not fair.

second some countries want to dump their product in the united states at below their costs. why? it's like what they say in business a loss leader. they'll take a loss but get market share and knock out a u.s. competitor. that takes jobs away from us. that's also not fair. and again there are international tribunals that deal with this not but also laws in our country that says if you're dumping product here in the united states, that's considered unfair. and a company can bring a case and if they can prove their materially injured the company is materially injured, they can find some relief there. so as we are expanding the countries for -- opportunities for trade around the world we have to make sure laws work to protect our workers who are not getting a fair shake. by the way a lot of these workers are doing everything right. everything that's being asked of them. they are going through worker retraining to learn how to operate the most highly technical, sophisticated machines that are the most

efficient. frankly, that often results in fewer jobs. but it results also in very high quality u.s. products that are made with the best technology. some of these workers have been asked to make concessions if their pay or their benefits in order to be competitive. and what they say to me is rob we know we're in a global marketplace. we know we're going to have to compete. and we know it's not just about competing with indiana anymore it's about competing with india and china and japan and brazil and the european union. and so we're willing to become more competitive. to learn these skills. to play by these global rules. but once we do that, we want that playing field to be level and that's fair. that's the least that they should expect from us here in the united states congress to ensure that while they are making these changes to be more competitive, that we are watching their back. and that's what a lot of the debate has been about with regard to this trade promotion authority vote that we're having.

this is the opportunity for congress to express its will as to what the trade negotiations ought to look about. it's not about a specific negotiation, the trans-pacific partnership or the ttip negotiations with the e.u. or other bilateral relationships. it is about establishing what congress believes ought to be the right rules going forward. i am very hopeful mr. president, that today on the floor we'll have the opportunity to vote on a couple of different amendments that relate to this. one, that the presiding officer is very well aware of is a strong interest of mine is ensuring other countries don't commitment manipulate their currency so their exports are less expensive to us and our imports that we send to them are more expensive. that's not fair. when they intervene deliberately in their currency for that purpose and do it in a large-scale, protracted way that's called currency manipulation. there are rules against it. the international monetary fund has rules against it. as an example every one of the partners in the trade agreement

that is being negotiated now with the pacific countries every one of those countries the trans-pacific partnership countries has signed up to these obligations already. so the amendment that we'll be voting on today simply says here is the standard you've already agreed to, let's say that when you're negotiating a trade agreement with us, to lower barriers both here in the united states to give them more access to our market and us access to their market which is something we have to be doing to help our farmers and workers let's be sure those benefits can't be undone by going in and manipulating their currency which is a market distortion. most countries would say we wee agree with that and we're not doing it currently. that's true. i don't think any of the 12 countries we're talking about currently are doing it. i will say they have in the past. since 2012 i don't believe japan has been doing it and don't take my word for it, listen to the international monetary fund and the department of treasury. they give us a report every year on this.

before that they did over 300 times. and it makes it a whole lot harder for us to compete. again, our workers our farmers are willing to be the most productive, the most efficient, they know they've got to compete. we should applaud them for that. and we should support them and help them. but they want to be sure that after they've done all that, and after we've reduced some of these barriers that the playing field doesn't tilt making it easier for these other countries to send their product here which outcompetes ours because of currency manipulation. that's what that issue is all about. there will be two amendments, one of which will be offered by senator hatch and one offered by me. and senator stabenow. and the one that we're offering is one that does have teeth in it. it says it needs to be an affordable provision but -- enforceable provision but leaves within the office of the u.s. trade representative to determine how that's done. it's an office that i had the honor of holding at one time, i had the great honor of representing our country all around the world in negotiating

agreements and talking about these very showers with other countries and i can tell you sometimes other countries may not want to talk about it but at the end of the day they know currency manipulation is bad for everybody, it's bad for the international trading system, it's tempting to do because short-term it makes your exports less expensive and if you want to be an export-driven economy as danny is, that helps sometimes. but -- china is, that helps sometimes. but it's not ultimately in anybody's best interests. let's have threes disciplines but make them enforceable so there is some ability for us to truly stop this manipulation, to discourage, it, to have disciplines in place. that's what this amendment is going to be about. i know the administration has said they don't support this. it's log interest because here is secretary lew's letter, holding our trading partners accountability for their currency practices has always been important to this administration. i agree with him. i agree with this letter, his

recommended veto threat to country, should you put accountable advantage into the trade promotion authority. i hope you'll stick with this letter and not his recommendation to the president. the president himself has talked about this. he's talked about his opposition to currency manipulation and, by the way so have 60 united states senators. this was in 2013, not all currently in the united states senate but 60 senators signed a letter saying in our trade agreements we must have enforceable, accountable, enforceable currency manipulation provisions. so most of this body has been on record in the past. this is what the president said back in 2007. it wasn't this week but 2007. he said he will work with his colleagues in the senate to ensure that think trade agreement brought before the congress is measured not just administration commitments but instead against the rights of americans to folks unfair trade practices including currency

manipulation. so the notion that the president might veto this because it has protections against currency manipulation, i don't think so. i think he understands the importance of trade promotion authority. i certainly do. i think he knows we need to get off the sidelines and get back in the business of negotiating agreements that make sense for our farmers our workers our service providers. i think in his heart he also realizes you've got to have this discipline in place. the alternative would be interesting, you could end up lowering tariffs and nontariff barriers in this agreement and one of these countries that has previously been involved in currency manipulation like malaysia or japan could step in and do it again. and undo so many of the benefits. that would be pretty tough to explain to our constituents. we had the opportunity to address this and chose not to. some are concerned about this being a poison pill. i would just say the obvious which is if you have more protections, it won't be harder to pass this in the house of representatives because the concern a lot of people have is

obviously trade is somehow not fair. i agree that we ought to pass trade promotion authority. it's incredibly important to the people i represent. it's incredibly important to our country. it's even a geopolitical issue now because america's footprint in that region the asian pacific should be greater. china is one of these countries that is negotiating agreements pretty rapidly with countries all throughout the region. it's important we get back in the business of establishing trade ties. that's a geopolitical issue even a national security issue and a strategic issue but also just important to our economy. we all want to give this economy a shot in the arm. this weak recovery we're working through right now is weaker because we're not seeing the gains in exports we would see. we only have free trade agreements with 10% of the global g.d.p. you think about it we don't have an agreement with the e.u. or with china or with japan.

or many other large economies brazil. but about 10% of the world we do have trade agreements with them and we send 47% of our exports to that 10% of the world. from ohio, by the way it's more than half. about 52% of our exports. but, again as we do that, let's be darned sure that we are leveling that playing field that we are addressing these issues we all know exist whether it's dumping product here or whether it's illegally subsidizing products or manipulating currency. it seems to me this is the right balance. it seems to me this is something that again congress owes the people i represent watch their back make sure they get a fair shake. the other amendment that i hope we'll have the opportunity to vote on this afternoon is being discussed right now in another room off this chamber is an amendment that ensures you have a more level playing field with regard to bringing these cases against companies that sell their product in the united

states unfairly because they sell them at below cost they dump them or subsidize them and there are governments that do a lot of sidessization. that's a market distortion and we should fight against it. the rules that are in place have been there a long time. they're consistent with the world trade organization, other countries have them in place as well. i will tell you the way companies seek and get relief right now is far from perfect because so often by the time a company can show that they're materially injured which is the standard it's too late. the market share is gone. many of the workers are gone. sometimes the companies themselves are gone. this legislation is going to be introduced by senator brown, my colleague from ohio, and myself. senator brown has been talking about this issue on the floor he's passionate about it. when we travel around the state both of us to places like cleveland and toledo and youngstown and dayton, we hear about this issue.

we hear that yeah, we can operate on a level playing field but please, help us to ensure that we -- when we find product that is subsidize product being dumped here we have the chance to be able to get the relief we deserve. so this amendment enhances those protections for ohio workers seeking relief from illegally undersold or subsidized imports. this amendment is backed by 80 trade associations and companies including some great companies in ohio, nucor u.s. steel and others. it's a commonsense bipartisan measures measure this that says workers shouldn't to lose their jobs before companies get relief. 78 of the colleagues in the senate backed a customs bill which included this language. there is a lot of support for this on the floor. we would love to guilty this included in this legislation because this is the legislation most likely to move through the

house and to the president. this is where it ought to be given we're talking about how to expand exports that's good but to make sure we have have more fairness in terms of the international trade situation. last night on the floor i was talk about a.k. steel in westchester, ohio. they have 4,000 workers in the state of ohio. i talked about their production facility in zanesville, ohio, 250 workers are there. u.a.w. workers. they make grain oriented electrical steel a specialty steel exported all over the world. i went through what happened to them. they were exporting it to china, china illegally shut out this kind of specialty steel and they lost 92% of their exports to china even though it was illegal for china to do it, even though we won the u.s. government took china to the world trade organization and won, china appealed that, used all the time they could use to avoid complying with that order, by the time it was over it was five or six years they lost 92% of their exports.

so they lost hundreds of jobs in ohio because they couldn't get into that chinese market. by the way it's now happening in the european union. for other purposes, apparently because of concern about other products the european union is now also blocking some of this very specialty steel made in my home state of ohio. so it hap -- so it happens overseas, we foe that. yet when this same company goes to our commerce department, our international trade commission to seek relief for illegally traded imports coming in, these are imports that are i illegally traded, they have a hard time getting relief. so american products are shut out of china and the ^+*eu but american workers can't get the help they need. this provision would help change that this amendment we've been talking about. this is called the level the playing field amendment. it helps protect thousands of american jobs that would

otherwise be put at risk because our trade laws frankly haven't kept up with the speed of international commerce. i had some ohio steel pipe and tube manufacturing companies in my office yesterday. it is a growth industry for the most part because we have a lot more oil and gas wells propping up around the country. these companies employ thousands of workers across my state. frankly, they're having a tough time right now because of the market. nothing to do with imports but the fact that the price of oil is such that it's harder to justify drilling new wells and so the fracking has slowed down, and so they've lost some business. but the other thing that's happened is there has been a surge of foreign imports. so there is a record number now of imports of pipe and tube products coming into this country at a time when our companies are already seeing kind of a soft market because of the lower price of oil and less activity in the oilfields and

gas -- natural gas fields in ohio and around the country. so there are companies like timkin steel which has over 1,000 workers in canton, ohio, who are continuing to make investments in their plant so it can be modern, updated efficient. i was there recently, i was able to visit with them and see some of their new investment, and it will be one of the most modern steel plants in the world. their export products are really impressive. they send them all over the world. these are engineered steel products. but just yesterday they told me they're now approaching about a 50% capacity. that's just barely breaking even for them. and, by the way they're at a higher exrasty capacity level than most in the industry these days. it is the combination of a soft market but also a record number of imports imports of pipe and tube

products. a little further east, valorec in youngtown also produces pipe and tiewp products. it's kind of a poster child for what american manufacturers should be doing, which is investing in plant and equipment. first new steel mill in the valley in a couple of generations. but, boy they're having a tough time right now. even though they have a invested in their infrastructure, doing all the right things, they've become more competitive they're having a tough time. some of you may know about them because actually a couple years ago president obama it was in that factory in youngstown using it as a backdrop to tout our american manufacturing comeback. a record number of import penetration is now causing disruption for their manufacturing. these imports are entering our country at very low prices and we suspect this is the basis for a future trade remedy case. either dumping selling below cost or subsidized product.

they want to be sure that they have the ability to bring this case before it's too late. our trade remedy laws just haven't kept up, again with the fast pace of the global economy. valorec had 1,200 workers. they've had to furlough about 300 workers and are now at about 20% capacity. last week when i was on the floorks i talked about another company, wheatland tube, also in the valley. i've got an e-mail from one of the officials at wheatland tube. this is what he said. "as an individual employed in manufacturing, i understand better than most that trade is a key component for economic growth." so he starts off saying, we know we need to trade. then he says, "however, it's important for u.s. manufacturers, including steel and pipe producers -- steel pipe and tube producers to have the ability to challenge

unfair trade. that's why trade agreements must -- ages as u.s. citizen who makes a living in manufacturing provisions included in the level the fraying field act" -- that's the amendment i'm talking about -- will include loopholes in the trade acts to challenge trade disporting practices. i also support language in the t.p.p. that prevents currency manipulation and the dumping of foreign products in the united states." "it is essential that provisions to close loopholes in trade laws are included in the final trade bill. there is a huge difference between fair trade and. without laws to regulate unfair trade, i know my job -- my job he says, and the jobs of thousands of other manufacturing workers are at risk.

so to mike mac who sent me this e-mail from wheatland tube in warren ohio, i appreciate your expressing your point of view and i appreciate your supporting this amendment. and i appreciate the fact that you understand that trade is important. and that you have to be competitive. and that's not easy. it requires some concessions. it requires some sacrifices. but once do you that, we've got to be sure that we've got their back. when these american pipe and tube manufacturers in my office yesterday said one thing that really worried me. they said, if our trade remedy laws around fixed and fixed quickly, one of us will not be at this table next year because we'll be out of business. these were good companies. these were companies doing the right thing. and they're telling me, look around the table. there's several of us here now. at least one of us may not be here next year.

because of these concerns that we're hearing from workers from companies, again we're offering a very simple, modest, and reasonable clarification of american law regarding the definition of material injury. it is exactly what congress intended originally, to propose legislation makes no substantive changes to the definition. instead, the legislation clarifies that the international trade commission shall not determine that there is no material injury or threat of material injury to a domestic industry merely because the dispri is still making money or because the performance of the domestic industry is improved. this clarification i think underscores when the current language already shows. the definition of material injury is not intended to be so burdensome that the companies have to go under or at least see job loss before they can get the relief they deserve. so i hope this amendment will be supported as it was in the dams package. i hope we can get it to the floor for a vote. i think it's incrediblecredibly important that we make sure this goes along with something that's

also very important expand our imports all around the world. we want to be sure that american companies are being harmed by illegal imports feel that we're here to back them up and know they won't have to wait and watch as subsidized or dumped imports put them on the verge of going business and laying off hundreds if not thousands of american workers. so the whole notion here is that before companies are gravely or severely injured, they have the chance to make their case. so they can have confidence in u.s. trade laws, that they'll be enforced as congress originally intended they be and be able to compete on this level playing field. protecting workers and jobs is not a partisan issue, by the way. this is something beth sides of the aisle believe in. it's about fairness. it's about ensuring that those factory workers and towns all across america understand that as we expand exports as we open up trade between companies

we're also looking out for them to ensure that it's done in a fair way. that if they are willing to work hard, play by the rules, they can indeed not just you can seed but thrive here in this, the greatest country on the face of the earth the country that has this economy that has been in the past the envy of the entire world, on the cutting edge. we need to get back to that. we need to continue making things in this country. we need to continue encouraging innovation and creativity and in doing so, we will be able to have the kind of robust economic recovery that all of us hope for. part of this is trade. more exports being sure it is fair. part of this is ensuring that in this body we provide those rules of the road. if we do so, i believe we'll not only be able to help the people we represent as we should, but also be able to rebuild a consensus around the importance of trade. some of you probably follow what's going on in the house this week with regard to trade promotion authority. it's tough to find the votes.

and i think that's reflective of the fact that a lost our constituents back home are skeptical. they're skeptical about trade because they've seen too often that as i mentioned earlier other countries are not playing i the rules and i gave you the specific examples of the u.s. steel company trying to sell it's product in china or the ^+*eu being blocked but not getting relief here. we can fix this. it is not a matter of changing our posture on trade. we are a country that is courageous. we believe in trade. we're not going to shrink from it. but we're also a country that believes in rules and believes in taking care of the people who we represent so that they're not unfairly treated in the international marketplace. that's what this debate is about. i hope we'll have a good vote on the currency manipulation amendment we talked about. whether we are able to get the other amendment up or not is still a matter of debate, as i understand it. the i hope we'll be able to work through that and be able to

offer this incredibly important amendment that's bipartisan called level the playing field i talked about. having votes on bodge of those i think strengthens trade promotion authority. frankly, makes it easier to get that legislation through the house. and to, in the end be able to get america back in the business of helping the workers the farmers, the service providers who we represent. i yield back my time. mr. president, i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: i would ask the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: mr. president, we'll be talking about the patriot act u.s. freedom act that's been offered and i think it's an important issue. i believe the patriot act provides a critical tool that has helped protect america and i believe it does so without any infringement on constitutional rights. some say we're -- we have to compromise rights or balance rights against the threats. maybe sometimes we would have to do that. but when we wrote the patriot act in the judiciary committee of which i'm a member, senator

leahy is a strong libertarian senator hatch is a strong libertarian. senator hatch was chairman, senator leahy was ranking member. i've been a federal prosecutor for 15 years. people like jon kyl and dianne feinstein and so many others worked on it for months. it wasn't passed in a few days without thought. people talked about it. it was on the radio and television. we got letters. we had hearings with professors and constitutional scholars and law enforcement officers, some public and some classified briefings. and we tried to write a bill, and i believe did that provided the federal government an expedited method to access phone call data, metadata as it's called under section 215 of the act. and this data has no content no

phone communications at all. it's just phone numbers even less than you get on your telephone bill when it comes to you in the mail every month. that data is maintained at the telephone companies maintained in their records. and everybody that makes a phone call should know that, does know that if they're alert to the world. and so that record is not your personal record. that record is the telephone company's record. now, if you have documents at home, if you have records in your desk, if you have records anywhere in your house, if you have a gun or drugs that are illegal in your house nobody can come in that house can't go into your car can't go into your glove compartment or trunk without a court order because

that's in your custody and you have a right under the fourth amendment to have privacy in that. and the law enforcement officer has to get a court order backed up by facts before they can breach that fourth amendment. of course the fourth amendment simply says that your right to private property is -- your right is against unreasonable search and seizures. it doesn't say the government can never conduct a search. it's unreasonable search and seizure is what the constitution says. and i would suggest first and foremost that it's reasonable that the government be able to identify certain matters of evidence that could prevent a 9/11 attack on america that could cause the death of thousands of americans. so what is it that is provided for under this act?

and i'm raising this because i think my colleagues have misunderstood it, and they're more worried about it than they should be. and in fact, i think many of their worries are based on false understanding of how the system works and a false understanding of the law and the false understanding of how law enforcement is conducted in america every day. so this system ... so these telephone companies all maintain these records and they are accessible by law enforcement, and it does not take a court order colleagues. it takes a subpoena. and a subpoena is a document, an

arrested for production issued -- an order for production issued by an entity empowered to issue subpoenas. and the basic standard for a drug enforcement administration federal agent to get people's telephone records that are in the possession of a telephone company is the administrative subpoena. they don't have to go to a judge. they don't have to go to the united states attorney or any federal prosecutor. they're empowered if the documents are relevant to an investigation they're conducting. because, you see they're not an individual's records. they are the phone company's records. and this is done every day. now, oddly the f.b.i. doesn't have that power. the f.b.i. is the agency charged with the responsibility of investigating and stopping terrorist attacks. but they've never been given this power.

they have to issue their subpoenas simply by calling the federal prosecutor, the u.s. attorney's office -- i was united states attorney 12 years assistant united states attorney for 2 1/2. i approved hundreds and hundreds and thousands of subpoenas. in almost every major investigation, you want telephone toll records so you're investigating a drug dealer and you capture somebody, and he starts providing evidence. he said i talked to the main drug dealer. how many times? hundreds. did you use a phone? yes. so you immediately subpoena the telephone records. and they come right in, and it says he can prove that he's telling you the truth. he's made 50, 100 phone calls to the main drug dealer. that corroborates his testimony and builds truth and power in the prosecution's case that this person is indeed a drug dealer and this witness is telling the

truth. now, there are all sorts of reasons for getting documents. that's just one of them. but it's done every day by a subpoena. and as i said, a subpoena does not require a judge's approval. so this all got stirred up in the patriot act and we set out this procedure with judicial oversight, the metadata where the phone company's phone data is just simply put in one secure system that is easily accessible by the federal government. i don't believe that violates any constitutional rights. i don't even think it requires -- it's just a mechanism by which to further the system. and before you can access it, the f.b.i., the national security agency has to have more proof and put out more evidence

and go through additional hoops than the drug enforcement agent does to get your telephone records. and these records have no names. they have nothing but a telephone number, the date the number was called and how long the conversation was. and nobody's accessing those records for personal gain. only 30-something people in the united states have the ability to access this system. and we do that -- that's the way it works. so i just believe colleagues, that this does not in any way impact the integrity of the constitutional right of privacy under the constitution. well somebody said, well, they could have used that. well, they could have -- they

could abuse it. but i've been out to this system. i've seen the people who operate it. they're not out there trying to corruptly spy on politicians. i don't know how they can use the system anyway to do that. anyone who works at the telephone company can access your telephone toll records. so how much security do you have in your telephone toll records pray tell? but these people aren't doing that. they're intentionally focused. if they have information on a phone number and they can see who other people have called that number and they can do some preliminary investigations and if it lights up and is a hit and has some information that coincides with other data they have they may be able to investigate it. and that may lead to other information. it may stop an attack on the united states of america. they're not after drug dealers.

they're not after bank cheats, fraudsters, armed robbers. they're after terrorists. that's all they're authorized to use the system for. all right. i just have difficulty having the words to express how i feel about this. so this system can save this country from massive attacks. we know health care reforms and our officials -- we know, and our officials are telling us there are more threats out there than before. a lot of people watch these television programs, "c.s.a." and things and they get a false impression of the power of the american government to conduct surveillance. and the extent to which it's limited. i work with f.b.i. agents,

d.e.a. agents, i.r.s. agents. they're not risking their career they're not signing false statements. you see that sometimes on television. even the heroes do things that violate the rules. in my experience, none of the federal officers i dealt with violated the rules. if a criminal walked, they walked. even though they desperately needed some information. they don't lie from defraud cheat. these people at n.s.a. aren't doing that either. they're patriots. they are the best kind of people you love to have serving in america. so i just think this is an exaggerated thing. so i hope, colleagues, that we'll spend more time identifying and looking through the challenges that we face, the threats that we face in america that we'll examine this program and be sure we fully understand

what's at stake the advantages that come -- and the president has told us examples of what will happen. director comey of the f.b.i. said that losing these authorities would be a big problem as the agency uses section 215 the key section in about 200 cases a year to get records through the foreign intelligence surveillance court. have to go under the authority of the court. by the way colleagues, the internal revenue service can issue an administrative subpoena to get your bank records. i think they have the power to issue telephone toll records too. but, no, not here in this system. you have to go through the court process. and mr. comey makes a point that this is important.

and we're talking about the roving wiretap authority that's in section 215. that's used in counter espionage and counterterrorism investigators and it allows the f.b.i. to conduct surveillance on a person who may be using a burner phone. burner b-u-r-n. in other words rs using -- in other words using a telephone and throwing it away and using a new phone to maintain their ability to communicate without intercepting. this is important when you actually do get a warrant that allows a title 3 wiretap of a terrorist phone. and so you get this ability and you go to court and the affidavits i've seen in 12 years as u.s. attorney, i think i had one or two wiretaps approved. they were hundreds of pages of

affidavits. you have to monitor it all. it takes tremendous time. but if you're after a terrorist a wiretap can be a decisive and important matter. then you face the problem you've got a wiretap and it names the phone and the number of it, but he throws that phone down and picks up another one. how do you deal with it? so this allows a roving wiretap and it provides a mechanism for when a person changes phones. and it's consistent with the fundamental principles we use in drug cases and organized crime cases. "the washington times" in an article published today the president of the law enforcement defense fund and former assistant director of the f.b.i. ron hosco said isis is a singing siren's song calling people to their deaths to crash on the rocks, and it's the rocks that isis will take credit for. they are looking for those who are disaffected disconnected

and willing to commit murder. so if we're willing to take away tools, okay, congressmen stand behind it and take the credit for putting the f.b.i. in the dark. close quote. in other words we need to be sure we'll be taking credit for shutting off the ability of our investigators to protect america. president obama said it is indeed helping protect america. last year he said -- quote -- "the program grew out of a desire to address a gap identified after 9/11. one of the hijackers khalid mendhar made a phone call from san diego to yemen. n.s.a. a national security agent saw that call but he could not see that call was coming from an individual already in the united states. they didn't have that legal ability or the system at that time that could do it.

the president went on to say the telephone metadata program was designed to map the communication of terrorists so that we could see who they may be in contact with as quickly as possible. speed is critical, colleagues. the president went on to say -- quote -- "this capability could also provide valuable information in a crisis. for example, in a bomb goes off in one of our cities and law enforcement is racing to determine whether a network is poised to conduct additional attacks. time is of the essence. being able to quickly review telephone connections to assess whether a network exists is critical to that effort. close quote. and i think the president is right about that. we don't have super human abilities in this country. we don't monitor everybody's phone calls. there's no way humanly possible

federal agents can be doing that. but once you identify someone who is being connected to a terrorist group, you could at least follow their phone numbers, who they may be calling. so passing the house bill, i believe is not the right thing. that bill would eliminate entirely the data base through which our intelligence analysts are able to quickly access information to connect the dots. the bill ends these programs. it just does. it ends the meta data program replacing it with a nonexistent untested system. it relies on the hope that private telephone companies will agree to retain the data. but these companies have made it clear they will not and flatly refuse to commit to retain this telephone data in their computer systems for any period of time as contemplated by the house-passed bill unless they

are legally required to do so. and the bill does not require them to do so. one provider said the following -- quote -- "we are not prepared to commit to voluntarily retain documents for any particular period of time pursuant to the proposed house bill if not otherwise required by law," and the house has refused to put that in it. well colleagues, when i was prosecuting phone companies kept the data often three years. some phone companies more. one rural phone company never got rid of this irdata. it was amazing -- rid of their data. it was amazing how older phone calls helped improve the dots, helped improve the facts that were critical in a prosecution. for example somebody says, "i never called john jones." and then you find 50 phone calls from their phone document to

john jones. these things have tremendous importance. and when you're looking to prevent an attack on america trying to produce intelligence to prevent enemy attacks on this country, just the fact that one individual is calling another individual who's known to be a terrorist is exceedingly valuable information. my goodness. maybe it's an innocent call but it's worthy of looking at and investigating. that's how investigators work. that's how crimes are solved. that's how attacks are stopped. one shred of evidence one bit can lead to new bits that lead to more and more evidence that reveals an entire organization poised to attack our country. so let me repeat, i don't believe we have a violation of the constitution.

i am absolutely convinced that the procedures utilized in this process are utterly consistent with the long policies approved by thousands of court cases nationwide that law enforcement uses on a daily basis to investigate tax cheats drug people. and we can't use these same tactics against terrorists who are enemies of the united states and seek to perhaps blow up and kill thousands of people? i think this is a mistake. i urge my colleagues to be careful about it. we have another letter from the sergeants benevolent association that pleads with us to do a short-term extension of the program, congress do your duty, dig into this program and see if you can't be sure that it's not

ended, that we do it in a way that's persistent with our laws. i think we're doing that now. that's my opinion and i was present when the law was drafted and we tried to be sure we did that and i believe we did. but it just -- some of the concerns are real. a lot of good people are concerned about it so i think it's time for us to slow down, go back to the bases lay out this program, see what the complaints are and to see if they're jefd. -- they're justified. if they are the program will have to end but i don't believe it needs to end. right now we're heading on a path that will end it. i would thank the president and would yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the minority leader is recognized. mr. reid: i road through this

morning's news, i was intrigued by a brand-new pew center research poll. are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: yes. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: as i read through this morning's news i was intrigued and struck by a new pew research poll. pew conducted a national survey to gauge americans' satisfaction with congress. unsurprisingly america is disillusioned with the senate and the house republicans. despite constant self-congratulations by the republican leadership, americans americans are rejecting republicans' leadership in congress. 72% of americans disapprove of the job being done by republican leaders in congress. that is an all-time high. just 4% of americans say republicans in congress have exceeded expectations. 4%.

even self-identifying republicans object how the party is governed. 55% of republicans disapprove of republican congressional leadership's job performance. fewer than four in ten republicans say their party is doing a good job representing their views. but among the results of the pew survey there is an especially troubling trend. i'm sorry let me repeat that, mr. president. but among the results of the pew survey there's an especial apply troubling trend. the survey found that 65% of americans say republicans have failed to live up to their campaign promises. only 27% of republicans believe their party is keeping its campaign promises. not independents, not democrats, but republicans. mr. president, integrity is a simple word. but here in the capitol it's everything. it's elected officials we all have to offer our constituents is our integrity. if we're not as good as our word then we're no good for

anything. it's appalling that five months into this new congress, most americans believe congressional republicans can't be trusted to keep their word. and what were those promises republicans made? how about this one from the majority leader. our focus would be on passing legislation that improves the economy and makes it easier for americans to find jobs and that helps restore america's confidence in the country and their government, close quote. that's what the majority leader said last year. but his record this year tells a completely different story. so far this year republicans have ignored the needs of their constituents just look how senate republicans have spent the time so far this year. the keystone pipeline legislation, legislation which is a handout to billionaires and certainly special interests is a bill that brings foreign oil into our country and ships it right back to the foreign nations. a near shutdown of the department of homeland security

even as isis and other terrorist groups are threatening our nation. the funding or victims of human trafficking took weeks to finish. a delay in confirmation of the attorney general of the united states being held longer than any prospective attorney general in the history of the country. not only her but many, many judges, not even hold, hearings for them. and other cabinet and subcabinet officers, not even holding hearings. of course there is nothing on the calendar because the committees are reporting nothing out of the committees. they passed an immoral budget that cuts task force for the wealthiest individuals while attacking working families and seniors. a trade bill that is assistant amawntor -- tantamount for aid for corporations and does nothing for the middle class. we're going to be asked in the

next few hours to extend the highway bill for the 33rd time. 33rd time. for a couple of months. what a shame. when we have 64,000 bridges that are structurally deficient 50% of our highways and roads are in really bad repair. 65% of americans say yes 53% of republicans say so, too that they're not living up to their campaign promises. so who can argue with that? one need only look at senate republicans' legislative agenda to realize there is nothing on the horizon that helps working american families. at this rate congress will finish this year with nothing to show for the middle class nothing. this trade bill as i mentioned this morning is a handout to multinational corporations and does nothing for the middle

class except cause them to lose jobs be shipped overseas. but the wealthiest 1% have reaped benefits during this first five months of this congress. that's why americans 72% of americans disapprove of the way republicans are leading congress. but there's still time to right the ship. there are many things we can do in the senate to help boost the middle class. we could pass the highway bill that immediately injects jobs into our economy while ensuring our businesses and families have safe roadways, rails and bridges to navigate. we can give american workers a livable wage and ensure no full-time employee is living in poverty. we can address a mounting burden of student loan debt which is worse than any other debt, more than credit card debts, more than anything else. and many many other things we can do for american families that haven't been done. it's clear that republicans aren't accomplishing much on their own s why not work with

us? democrats are willing. together we can all keep our word to our constituents, follow through on our commitment to help middle-class americans and get them the help they need and deserve. i would note the absence of a quorum mr. president. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. moran: mr. president i'd ask unanimous consent to lift the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. moran: mr. president i'd like to bring to the attention of my colleagues senate bill 1463. this is not a topic -- the bill topic is not one that my

colleagues have not heard me speak about numerous times before both in the veterans' affairs committee where i am a member yesterday in the appropriations subcommittee markup of veterans and military construction where i'm a member, and many times on this senate floor. the issue is the department of veterans affairs and its interpretation of the choice act. my colleagues will remember we passed the choice act in august of last year. the important provision for today's conversation is what that law says is if a veteran lives more than 40 miles from a v.a. facility, the department of veterans affairs must provide services that the verpts choose -- if the veteran chooses a location in his or her home community. unfortunately, the department of veterans services has interpreted it in a way for a veteran that lives within 40 miles. senate bill 1463 corrects that

problem, indicates that the 40-mile rule applies only in the circumstance where a veteran facility provides the service the veteran needs. a provision that this senate has voted on previously -- in fact in our budget it was adopted 100-0 on a roll call vote. so i think what i'm presenting is something that is very noncontroversial. there is no fiscal consequence to current spending. this was money that was appropriated in the choice act and should be something that can pass which on a unanimous request, which i will make momentarily. the question may be, why are you doing this? it's because certainly this is important and needs to be corrected quickly. and this bill, if adopted today by unanimous consent will go to the house of representatives where it can be considered. i also hope that what happens here is that partisan department of vents afairks which i believe can correct this problem on its own volition, will do so and when they see the senate pass

this legislation hopefully by unanimous consent, they will respond and solve this problem immediately. there is no reason that this can't be done, and i could outline that explanation. there's no reason this can't be done by the department of i would outline that explanation why that's true by reading the language of the bill, the choice act, and by the report language that confirms our position. so mr. president before i ask unanimous consent i also would like to thank my colleague -- in fact a couple of colleagues, a number of them, but two of them in particular, and especially the chairman of the veterans' affairs committee who has worked side by side with me to make certain that this legislation ultimately becomes law and in fact the chairman and the ranking merger the senator from connecticut -- ranking member, the senator from connecticut senator blumenthal has indicated to me that if -- three options can occur. we pass this by unanimous consent today the house passes

it the president signs it. that would be a great outcome. second-degreely, we pass this bill and the department of veterans affairs realizes they can do this on their own. that would be a great outcome. and thirdly if neither one of those things happens the chairman has committed to me that he will work side by side with all of us on the veterans' committee and other senators to make sure at every opportunity this language that is included in this bill is included in every bill related to veterans affairs that's on its way to the white house that the chairman will work with me to make sure that this language is enacted into law. and i would ask through the chair i would ask the senator from georgia senator isakson if what i'm indicating is accurate and to have him explain his thoughts on this topic in the few moments that we have. mr. isakson: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. dakota zach respondingmr. isakson: his language is precisely the language introduced by the committee here in the senate, which we were

going to send to the house which got lost in the negotiations. the technical lift is the only reason it wasn't already a part of it. i wholeheartedly endorse everything the senator said and pledge to him that if the house does not adopt the language when it goes to the house, we will take it up immediately with it comes to -- in the senate when we have our next markup meeting in the veterans' affairs committee and take care of it. i want toern pally acknowledge senator bennet and gardner for all the work they've done. we went to colorado together to visit a v.a. hospital, which is the genesis of where this motion comes from. i'm glad we're reaching a resolution. the motion will be made shortly to adopt the house decision will ensure that the denver hospital remains open until we can resolve the problems. i commend the senator on his language and confirm everything he said has being accurate, triewrks and correct. mr. moran: i thank the

chairman and appreciate very much his commitment to veterans. this is not about a specific piece of legislation. it is about keeping our commitment to those who served our country always, every day but especially here in advance of memorial day. therefore, mr. president i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of is $1463 introduced earl yerl today. -- earlier today. sphesh officer the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 1463 a bill to amend the veterans access choice and accountability act of 2014 and so forth. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding thetothe michigan? without objection. -- to the measure? without objection. mr. moran: i ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. moran: i yield the floor to the gentleman from colorado.

mr. bennet: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of h.r. 2496, which was received from the house. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 2496 and act to extend the authorization for the replacement of the existing department of veterans affairs medical center in denver, colorado and so forth and for other purposes. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. mr. bennet: mr. president i ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time. the presiding officer: without objection. is there further debate on the measure? if not all those in favor say aye. all those opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the bill is passed. mr. bennet: i ask the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and that any statements relating to the bill appear at this point in the record.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: mr. president i'd ask unanimous consent that remarks that i have prepared appear in the record as well. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: and before i turn this toafer my colleague from colorado i want to on the floor of the senate thank chairman isakson for his extraordinary leadership getting this done. it's very, very difficult to do. he came to colorado, senator blumenthal came to colorado. they are both men of their word, and i have never doubted that for an instant. the chairman has set and incredible example for this body. you wonts to thank the senator from kansas for his work on this and to my colleague senator gardner from colorado, he's been a true champion for our veterans. he's helped us keep our delegation together and through the chair i'd like to say thank you to him for his leadership and yield the floor to him for his remarks. mr. gardner: mr. president thank you. and i too want to reiterate to the thanks that my colleague from colorado has given to chairman

isakson as well as to the senator from kansas who worked with us to make sure we could all get behind two measures that we support both of which would provide greater care, greater support four our veterans and to my colleague senator bennet from colorado, thank you for the work that we have been able to do. this has been a tireless effort, in the hours leading up to memorial day to make sure that we provide the resources necessary to continue a hospital project in denver that has been no doubt beleaguered by problems but something that we must fulfill and must continue to fulfill to complete the project to get this thing built and to make sure that we don't result in even higher costs than it has already -- has already undertaken. mr. president, this is an effort that is going to take continued cooperation, not only the colorado delegation but by the veterans administration itself, over the next three weeks we have been given a reprieve, a

reprieve to make sure we can find the policies and a viable path forward to get this job done that results in a hospital that will complete and fulfill the promises we made to veterans in colorado. to -- through the chair to my colleague senator bennet, great leadership on all accounts and to chairman isakson for your leadership. thank you on -- on behalf of veterans across colorado, thank you for your efforts. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator is recognized. mr. blumenthal: thank you, mr. president. just a minute to thank all of my colleagues for the progress that we have been making on a very bipartisan basis. i want to thank particularly the chairman of the veterans affairs committee for his working so diligently on on an immediate and temporary solution to advance the aurora project and available us to keep it going and our

visit out there illustrated to us the importance of this project, which my two colleagues and friends from colorado have described so well and eloquently. and i want to thank my friend from the great state of kansas. he and i have worked to make sure that veterans are really served by the choice program along with the chairman who has understood and enabled us to work together on a bill which will be passed by unanimous consent, i hope, and will passed by the house of representatives i hope by unanimous consent. but if not as i have committed to him, i will continue working to make sure that the 40-mile rule and choice mean that veterans are served by a facility that really can give them the care that they need and deserve. our heroes ought not to have to travel great distances or wait

inordinate amount of times to receive that medical care that is so well-deserved by them. allthey ought to have it. and i thank my colleagues for working so well and diligently on this effort. i yield the floor. mr. wyden: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator is recognized. mr. wyden: mr. president i move without objection to enter into the record a letter from judge steven sweebel president

of the international court of justice. this letter provides a useful perspective on the investment matters that have been discussed this week. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wyden: mr. president, i'm going to be brief because i know chairman hatch and i are going to be making some motions here in a moment. but on this currency issue, i want it understood that this is a serious serious issue and it is absolutely essential that our trade laws include tough enforceable currency rules and that we put in place those rules without doing damage to american monetary policy or our ability to tackle the big economic challenges in the days ahead. the senate has a choice between the amendment offered by senator hatch and myself and the amendment offered by senators portman and senator stabenow. my view is this: the portman

amendment could outsource the question of the federal reserve's intent and decision-making to the whims of an international tribunal. this could take tools out of the economic toolbox that we could need need greatly during a potential financial crisis. we hope it will never happen, but the bottom line is the congress must not set up the possibility of collateral damage for the fed and our dollar. the right solution, which chairman hatch and i have worked to offer as an alternative will make sure that america gets the up side of cracking down on currency manipulators and avoids the down side of limiting the federal reserve's tool kit of monetary policy. our view is we strike the right balance, we make sure that we're going to have the widest array of effective tools available

including strong enforceable rules, and i think we ought to take that route. the alternative could subject our country to dispute settlement over our own monetary policies. that means as i indicated, that the alternative to portman amendment would in effect outsource questions of the federal reserve's intent to the whims of an international tribunal. the portman amendment tries to carve out domestic monetary policy. sure sounds like a good idea, but when you've opened yourself up to attack over your policies, other countries don't have to take your word that your policies are on the up and up. even with that carveout, mr. president, other countries can still come after us. for example many countries argue that our quantative easing policy unfairly devalued the dollar. they were dead wrong on that. but the senate shouldn't do anything that could strengthen

the hand of those countries that want to attack our monetary policies. so i want to make now mr. president, now that chairman hatch is here, i want to propound a unanimous consent request. mr. president, over the past few days chairman hatch and i have been working in a bipartisan and cooperative fashion to come up with a balanced package of amendments that can be voted on. i very much appreciate the work of the chairman and his bipartisan leadership, and particularly my northwest colleague, senator murray. it appears regrettable that we have come up short. but for the benefit of colleagues, i would like to propound a unanimous consent request that would be available on our side. these are amendments that i believe are important to the senate to consider as part of this debate. so my request is: i ask unanimous consent that it be in order for the following first-degree amendments to the hatch substitute be made pending

during today's session of the senate and that no other first-degree amendments would be in order. first the cruz-grassley amendment on immigration. senator menendez' amendment on trafficking. senator sullivan's amendment on fish and shellfish. senator warren's amendment on financial services. senator daines amendment on indian tribes. senator done lee's amendment on training programs. senator sessions' amendment on congressional approval. senator boxer's amendment on minimum wage. senator paul's amendment on bonuses for cost cutters. senator manchin's amendment on state effects. senator paul's amendment on auditing the fed. senator cardin's amendment 1230 on human rights. senator brown and portman's amendment 1252 on leveling the playing field. white house amendment on unregulated fishing. amendment 1308 on clean air and water. senator meshically -- senator

casey, senator murphy's amendment 1346 on buy american. amendment 1317 on trade. further, that the time until 5:00 p.m. today be equally divided in the usual form, that at 5:00 p.m. today the senate vote in relation to the following amendments in the order listed: hatch wyden 1411 on currency. portman stabenow 1299 on currency. senator warren 1327 on isds. senator flake 1243 on striking p.a.a. senator brown 12510 on china doing. senator cruz, senator grassley 1384 on immigration. senator menendez 1430 on trafficking. senator sullivan 1246 on fish. senator warren on financial services. senator daines 1418 on indian tribes. senator done lee on training

programs. senator boxer 1331 on minimum wage. senator manchin on state effects. senator cardin 1230. senator brown and portman 1252 on level playing field. senator whitehouse 1387 unregulated fishing. senator markey 1308 clean air and water. senator merkley 1404 on food information. nor casey and senator murphy 1436 buy american. senator ball win trade remedy. senator ben 1309 on poverty hundred der. second no seconds be in order to the amendments prior to the amendments listed. that all after the brown amendment 1251 be subjected to 60-affirmative vote threshold for adoption. on disposition of amendment 1309 that all other pending amendments sessions 1233, paul 1408 inhofe 1312, mccain 1226 shaheen 1227 and the hatch substitute be withdrawn. that all postcloture time be

considered expired and that the senate vote on the adoption of the hatch substitute amendment as amended. finally if cloture is invoked on h.r. 1314, all postcloture time be yielded back, the bill as amended be read a third time and the senate vote on passage of the bill as amended. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. hatch: mr. president on behalf of others, i have to object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. mr. hatch: mr. president i ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendments and call up the following amendments. number 1384 cruz. number 1430 menendez. number 1252 brown portman. further that amendment number 125 # 2 not be subject to any points of order under rule 22. mr. wyden: reserving the right to object, mr. president. the presiding officer: the gentleman is recognized. mr. wyden: mr. president on my reservation, i don't have a problem with the senate voting on the three amendments included

in chairman hatch's request. but there are a number of other important amendments that are not included in that request that colleagues on my side feel very strongly about and want to have the senate vote on. because the chairman's request would not allow these important additional amendments to be considered i must object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. mr. hatch: mr. president? the presiding officer: the gentleman is recognized. mr. hatch: mr. president as you know, as everybody should know both the distinguished senator from oregon and myself, we tried to work these amendments out and we were unsuccessful. there were objections and therefore, i apologize that we weren't able to do more. but cloture was invoked and that's the rule, i guess. i want to urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the hatch-wyden amendment 1411. if adopted our amendment would strengthen the negotiating objective in the t.p.a. bill relating to currency

manipulation. specifically it would provide our country with a multitude of tools to address currency manipulation in the context of free trade agreements including enhanced transparency, disclosure reporting monitoring cooperative as well as enforceable rules. as we all know, this amendment is filed as an alternative to the portman-stabenow currency amendment and it is superior in a number of ways. i know that many of my colleagues are sincerely concerned about currency manipulation and want to do something to address this issue. i share those concerns which is why senator wyden and i introduced this alternative currency amendment that provides a more sensible approach, one that has been endorsed by leaders in the administration, the business community and elsewhere. unlike the portman-stabenow amendment, the hatch-wyden amendment would not derail the t.p.p. negotiations. unlike portman-stabenow the hatch-wyden amendment poses no threat to america's monetary independence. unlike portman-stabenow, the

hatch-wyden amendment would prevent future trade and currency wars. unlike portman-stabenow, the hatch-wyden amendment would prevent greater monitoring and transparency and keep manipulation practices out of the shadows. and probably most importantly unlike portman-stabenow, the hatch-wyden amendment would not kill -- the presiding officer: all postcloture time is expired. mr. hatch: i ask unanimous consent to have an additional minute. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. hatch: indeed of the two currency amendments now pending in the senate, the hatch-wyden amendment is the only one that stands a chance of ever becoming law. i urge my colleagues to support our amendment to allow us to more effectively address currency manipulation without killing the t.p.a. bill. and with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: l all postcloture time is expired. the question occurs on amendment number 1141 as modified offered

by the senator from utah, mr. hatch. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: